TOYOTA MOTOR CORPORATION
Rising to the Top
Prepared by xxxxxx
English Business Writing Student
Report Distributed May 3, 2006
Prepared for Drxxxx
English Department
xxxxx
Since it began as a small business created by Sakichi Toyoda in 1926, Toyota has evolved into one of the top automobile manufacturers in the world. "The name Toyota came about in 1936, when protectionist legislation improved prospects for Japanese automakers and Kiichiro Toyoda changed the name when he split off the car department" (Bryant). The company has been slowly gaining on its main competition since the 1970's, when it was the world's fourth largest car manufacturer and is showing no signs of slowing down. Their upper level management's brilliant usage of cycle time reduction has made their recent moves both strategic and efficient and allowed the company to move ahead of Ford Motor Company in terms of size and prestige. Ultimately, the creation of hybrid vehicles, the ability to build more vehicles in the United States, and the further expansion into China have led to Toyota's recent success.
Moreover, the recent increase in the price of gas has led to consumers to favor smaller vehicles and hybrid vehicles that use a gasoline engine and an electric motor. Smaller vehicles are important in terms of saving money on gas and people living in urban areas favor them largely for the fact that parking is easier to find. This is seen especially in New York City, where people sometimes spend large amounts of time to search for places to park their vehicle. Generally, hybrid automobiles use gasoline to power the internal combustion engine and electric batteries to power the electric motor, which uses less gasoline.
Toyot ...