23 ms·

Shoichiro Toyoda, who turned Toyota into global automaker, has died

453 points by isomorph 4y ago

gkanai 4y ago
I've seen this news of Toyoda's passing posted across various social media channels and it's incredible to see how many Toyota owners have thanked him posthumously. I remember that when Steve Jobs died. This seems similar in a sense.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  >This seems similar in a sense. They exist in very similar segments portions of their respective industries serving very similar customer demographics (in North America). Naturally there is going to be quite a bit of evolutionary convergence.
  - neoromantique 4y ago
    Are there though? Toyota is never perceived as a luxury brand, it is associated with quality, reliability and maintainability. Something that you can hardly say about Apple.
    - thfuran 4y ago
      iPhones have a far longer service live than androids.
    - cruano 4y ago
      Something that you can hardly say about the industry*
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      They didn't distribute most of their luxury platforms worldwide. E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Century
      - skhr0680 4y ago
        Lexus entering Japan started the slow decline of Toyota-badged luxury sedans. The Alphard is still an upper-middle class status symbol, but the people who saw Toyota as a luxury brand bought their last Crown ten years ago and are fast approaching 80. I suspect that is also the reason for the unification of Toyota badges and the Hail Mary design of the new Crown.
      - scrlk 4y ago
        The Century is such a wonderfully understated car. The European equivalent would probably be something like a VW Phaeton with the W12 engine. This marketing video from Toyota on the 2nd gen Century is a good summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1erJ1eVmLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1erJ1eVmLo
    - Octoth0rpe 4y ago
      That's highly dependent upon which country you're in. In the United States, Toyota has a separate brand for their luxury offerings (Lexus), and so what you say is true. But in other countries, those nice Lexus cars are sold as Toyotas.
      - hotpotamus 4y ago
        Yes, I came to say that if I were to buy a luxury car, it would be a fancy Toyota AKA Lexus. I wonder if most people aren't aware of that? And Cadillac is just GM? It's hardly unusual in the American market - I believe it's been called badge engineering for at least as long as I've been alive.
        neoromantique 4y ago
        There is a reason why Toyota separated their luxury segment into a different brand.
    - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
      Apple doesn't prioritize reliability because that's not what their subset of upper middle class consumers want in a phone. Toyota doesn't prioritize cost or feature/performance parity because that's not what their subset of upper middle class consumers want in a vehicle. They both make products that are about as high as you can go in their respective market segments without getting into pure luxury and conspicuous consumption type purchases and refuse to go down-market lest they sully their brand image. In both cases they lather it up with a pretext so buyers don't feel like they're indulging in a luxury purchase. In apple's case they tightly integrate the hardware and software to assure a homogeneous user experience. In Toyota's case they try and dominate the 3rd party rankings on reliability. Of course, when you compare to the "next best" think in their class, like a Google or Samsung flagship phone or a Honda Accord you'll find that the actual difference is razor thin and that not having any "value priced garbage products" is really what's doing the reputational heavy lifting. Not wading into value priced territory is also very useful to the great many of each brand's respective customers who are willing to pay a huge premium to not have to think about it. A Toyota product may be overpriced for it's features/performance but if you just want an A to B appliance in a particular form factor it will do so with minimal maintenance expense. You won't have to waste your precious brainpower thinking about an expensive 100k service or fiddling with some gimmick feature. And on the apple side of things their tight control over the hardware-software combo results in a pretty strong guarantee of a high minimum user experience. If you just want a "nice phone" and don't wanna think about software versions, various flavors of android OS and stuff like that you can simply buy whatever iphone is in your budget? Is it the nicest phone in your budget, no. But you didn't have to waste precious brain-power comparing all the various Android options. Basically they both charge a premium for products that "just work" and they refuse to get into market niches where they can't do that, much to the benefit of their brand image. The above applies to North America only. Toyota makes a more diverse set of stuff globally and Apple doesn't dominate the same buyer demographics globally.
      - sokoloff 4y ago
        I don't know if Apple prioritizes reliability in their phones, but that seems to be an outcome of whatever they do prioritize. My family's four iPhones are: 2 iPhone X (Nov 2017), 1 XS Max (Sept 2018), and 1 13 (Sept 2021, only bought in order to hand-down one of the X to our kid). Those phones are 5, 5, 4.5, and 1.5 years old. Each of the 3 older phones was bought used when the next phone generation was released. Across our ownership, I've replaced two screens and three batteries (two were needed and one was "while I'm replacing the screen, it's easy and would be needed soon"), all DIY. I doubt we'll replace any of these phones in the next 2 years. The iPhone 8 is still getting software updates to iOS 16, so I expect the X will keep getting updates for several more years.
    - insane_dreamer 4y ago
      In the US, Lexus is on par with Merc/BMW/Audi
      - neoromantique 4y ago
        There is a reason why Toyota separated their luxury segment into a different brand.
        machinawhite 4y ago
        Yeah, marketing. They're top trim models sure but a Lexus IS300 in Japan is still just a Toyota Altezza with leather seats and a 2JZ
    - fomine3 4y ago
      Apple iPhone is not only luxury brand but also reliability brand.
    - insane_dreamer 4y ago
      I would say the first 2 qualities are definitely associated with Apple esp compared to other phones and laptops.
    - sva_ 4y ago
      That's one way of triggering HN.
    - _yb2s 4y ago
      I disagree. The main reason I buy Apple laptops is the physical reliability... they absolutely make low end (feature wise) models that still have top notch physical quality and longevity, including historically making super bare bones school/education targeted models. I know it's a premium model, but my 2010 Macbook Pro is still going strong with zero repairs other than two battery replacements that took about 5 minutes each, after over a decade of regular hard travel use. I think I'd be lucky to get 6 months from the average PC laptop with use like that. I'd argue that my iPhone SE2 is also a product that is very much a low end non-luxury phone, but with unparalleled physical build quality. I purchased it from a budget box store as part of a cheap prepaid cell phone plan- total ownership cost will be far less than the cheapest Android phones targeted at the 3rd world, if you consider how much longer it will likely last.
      - lukas099 4y ago
        It is also nice how long Apple continues to release security updates for their phones, which I believe is longer than any Android phone manufacturer.
        filoleg 4y ago
        Yeah, they go quite a bit back when it comes to full iOS updates, and even further back when it comes to security updates.[0] The oldest iPhone that supports the most recent full iOS version update (iOS 16) is iPhone 8, which was released in 2017. And they released a security update for iOS 12 in August of 2022 that supports iPhone 5s (released in 2013). That would make it 5 years for full OS updates and 9 years for security updates. 0. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222
      - scrlk 4y ago
        > I know it's a premium model, but my 2010 Macbook Pro is still going strong with zero repairs other than two battery replacements that took about 5 minutes each, after over a decade of regular hard travel use. I think I'd be lucky to get 6 months from the average PC laptop with use like that. Tip: don't bother with consumer grade PC laptops if you are after longevity. Only buy "business grade" machines like Lenovo ThinkPads, Dell Latitudes, HP EliteBook/ZBooks.
    - triceratops 4y ago
      iPhones and Macbooks last a long time and get software updates way longer than comparable products.
- ericalexander0 4y ago
  It's no coincidence. Jobs was influenced by quality philosophers like Toyoda, Deming, etc. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kib6uXQsxBA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kib6uXQsxBA
  - astrange 4y ago
    You could say Apple is basically an American copy of Sony. That's why he wore a uniform even if he couldn't get anyone else to do it.
- dorfsmay 4y ago
  > it's incredible to see From that statement, I'm guessing you've never owned a Camry?
ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
> establishing a culture of quality control that helped Toyota evolve into a world-leading automaker. A lot of the JIT stuff that is so common, these days, was revolutionary, when he introduced it. I'm told that many agile techniques also had their genesis in his work.
- SnowHill9902 4y ago
  It was mainly Taiichi Ohno who thought and created their production system and philosophy, not Toyoda.
  - ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
    Ah. I was always under the impression that it was Toyoda. Thanks for the correction!
    - hef19898 4y ago
      It was , as all big achievements, a team effort. And apparently Ohno is getting not that much of coverage in internal Toyota documents and history. He also did seem to EDIT: not EDIT be the nicest of persons. He absolutely was one of the drivers during the early days of TPS.
  - ericalexander0 4y ago
    Who learned the Toyota/Toyoda way from Sakichi Toyoda. https://www.toyota-industries.com/company/history/toyoda_sakichi/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/company/history/toyoda_sak...
- wil421 4y ago
  My father worked for a defense manufacturer making airplanes and other stuff. One of his first projects was scheduling parts for manufacturing in the late 80s. They joked at the time they used JIC (just in case) because they had so many random parts with no method to the madness. The scheduler worked out and they were able to move it off some high performance IBM (or similar) computer onto a PC that didn’t require a specialized IBM tech or support contract, written in C.
drumhead 4y ago
Taking a small local car manufacturer and turning it into the one of the worlds biggest car makers, , overtaking all the US giants and creating the JIT process to revolutionise manufacturing is remarkable.
- blevin 4y ago
  It really is amazing. Another way to visualize this success is to consider how physically close you are to one of Toyota’s products right now, sort of a K-nearest neighbors idea. And how many of those were manufactured in Japan, and considered notable within their category (ex: 4Runner, RAV4 Prime).
- epolanski 4y ago
  Toyota isn't just "one of the worlds biggest car makers" it is THE biggest car maker on the planet. They sell 25% more cars than the Volkswagen group (second biggest car maker on the planet) which includes Volkswagen, SEAT, Skoda, Porsche, Bentley and Audi and 50% more than Stellantins (which includes Fiat, Citroen, Peaugeot, Jeep, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Opel and another 6 manufacturers). It's just impressive how many cars Toyota sells. Toyota and Lexus also generally turn buyers into recurrent customers as few brands on this planet do. If "no one got fired for buying Intel", I think it's fair to say that "no one got it wrong by buying a Toyota/Lexus". I just can't think any car manufacturer that gives you as much as Toyota for the price you pay.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    > They sell 25% more cars than the Volkswagen group (second biggest car maker on the planet) No. Volkswagen and Toyota are pretty even. They swap positions as the biggest car maker. Volkswagen became the biggest in 2017 but Toyota became the biggest again in 2021: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/business/toyota-volkswagen-japan-germany-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/business/toyota-volkswage...
    - epolanski 4y ago
      I was referring to 2022 sales, not historical data. In 2022 Toyota sold 2.5M cars more which means a 30% bump over VW group.
notlukesky 4y ago
I remember being shocked in the 90s at finding out the Toyota Corolla had the highest value retention of any car according to the Kelly Blue Book. And then there was the NUMMI joint-venture of Toyota and GM and the same exact cars that would come out of that factory would have different value retention. Obviously the GM car would depreciate more in value. Brand reputation clearly matters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI Tesla has now taken over the NUMMI facilities.
- dsfyu404ed 4y ago
  Brand reputation is a positive feedback loop. Better reputation -> charge more money -> poorer people who are gonna use your product at 11/10ths and try and skate by with the bare minimum of proactive maintenance buy it less -> the average example on the road is in better condition for its age -> high end consumers go "hey those things are lasting well I'll buy one" -> your average customer is richer so you don't have to cheap out in as many places on your product -> GoTo(step 2). Of course the process needs to be kick started with a couple actual good products but once it takes off you're basically home free if you don't f it up. The whole "the same GM car deprecated more" makes for great online virtue points from fanboys but it's not exactly illustrative of anything that isn't well known to be from other factors. The versions of otherwise identical cars that are preferred by higher end consumers will hold value better because they get treated better and kept nicer resulting in higher value at any given age/mileage. You can see this trend in action if you cross shop badge engineered cars that are old enough that purchase price no longer has any bearing on price.
  - kube-system 4y ago
    Yep. The opposite feedback loop is “big Altima energy”. The $1000 cheaper new cars become the preferred cars of those who don’t care or can’t really afford it, which end up being the cheapest and most abused used cars. Which end up on buy-here-pay-here lots. And repeat.
    - creaturemachine 4y ago
thenerdhead 4y ago
Jeffrey Liker wrote a number of books on Toyota and his involvement(The Toyota Way for example). What is so inspiring is seeing all the generations of Toyoda build upon each other's work creating something so respected in the industry and extends to many people's personal development based on their principles alone. So many great things have come from their philosophy. What a titan.
lvl102 4y ago
Made in Japan Toyota are built different. There’s something special about manufacturing in Japan even down to a simple screw.
- ethbr0 4y ago
  My first manager was an ex-military crew-chief who was stationed in Japan for a bit. In his words, "Whatever your job is, you take pride in it and try to do it the best you can every day. If you're a gas station attendant, you try to be the best gas station attendant you can be." His description obviously stuck with me, as it's a nice summary of a fundamental social bargain: everyone is important and valued, and in exchange everyone will put in effort. I know everything isn't peaches and roses in Japanese culture and society, but it makes a good point that excellence is pervasive throughout an organization... or not at all.
  - Aperocky 4y ago
    > everyone is important and valued This statement is in seeming conflict well documented hierarchical nature of Japanese society.
    - ethbr0 4y ago
      My understand is it's more complicated than that: while inequitable, there's also a corresponding expectation of duty to those below one. E.g. jobs for life
    - redwall_hp 4y ago
      That's a very western lens still. Hierarchy doesn't mean you view those under you with contempt. The entire concept of a team, on a micro scale, is that it has a leader who is invested in the group's success and people who choose to follow them because they think the leader respects them and can provide the necessary coordination. Toxic individualism doesn't get things done, nor does it encourage excellence. A hierarchy with mutual respect does, though it must be fair and tempered with reasonable mobility.
losvedir 4y ago
I had a Toyota. It was a great car, and a real testament to the engineering prowess Toyoda established. I see very clear, very interesting Innovator's Dilemma vibes, though, in how widely they've missed the boat on EVs. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Toyota lose its dominance in the coming decade. It's sad, since the Prius was such a gamechanger. Maybe the passing of the torch here will let them start to catch up.
- namdnay 4y ago
  I think there’s enough time for them to catch up, look how far the Koreans have come in less than ten years
  - Dalewyn 4y ago
    I'm happy to bet it's not happening. Japan is far too busy fighting amongst themselves and/or catering to themselves first and foremost. South Korea, Taiwan, and China slayed Japan because they played for keeps and pulled no punches. Japan simply does not have the correct mindset to deliberately (re)conquer and succeed. If this sounds brutal and/or flippant, allow me to say that I'm saying this as a Japanese-American. I will happily use my blood to shit talk my heritage, because honestly it's a fucking shame and it's even more shameful that Japan can't (read: won't) dig themselves out.
    - insane_dreamer 4y ago
      But don’t Toyota and Honda still own the sedan market in the US (Corolla/Prius/Camry/Civic/Accord)? I’m pretty sure they’re stronger than the Koreans in the compact/midsize SUV market too (CRV, RAV4). Koreans might be stronger elsewhere, not sure.
      - Dalewyn 4y ago
        Cars are one of the few industries Japan still holds the crown of, but if past track records in other industries are anything to go by I expect that a changing of the crown is only a matter of time. Anyone who is familiar with computing history should know of Japan's practically disasterous fall from grace in nearly everything related to the computer industry. I've also seen that exact cycle of falling play out countless times in their other industries. I'm sick and tired of Japan continuing to lose and eat dirt, I would be ecstatic to be proven wrong. But Japan just doesn't have the mindset to (re)win customers in the 21st century.
mjul 4y ago
The Toyota Production System was established during Shoichiro Toyoda's leadership. It is the company's "operating system" if you will, and has made an enormous impact, both in the auto industry and in other fields such as IT. "Lean" manufacturing, a term from Womack & Jones, is based on their research into this. If you want to dive in, here is my reading list for essential books on how Toyota came to build high quality cars at scale, and how it transfers to other disciplines. W. Edwards Deming - the grand old man of the field, building on a strict statistical discipline. His book "Out of the Crisis" is a wonderful treatise on his thinking including his famous "14 Points for Management". This is definitely a must read that will change the way you think about management and quality. Deming provided the inspiration for the quality movement that powered post-war Japanese manufacturing. Taiichi Ohno - one of the greatest industrial innovators of the 20th century, the father of the Toyota Production System. After spending his career relentlessly optimizing manufacturing at Toyota he wrote the book "Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-scale Production" that describes his work. Womack & Jones - Their books are great and it is well worth to read them all to see a lot of the principles and case studies for lean thinking. Also, it is quite interesting to see that software development is now rediscovering some of the things that manufacturing learned much earlier - in the case of Toyota as early as in the 1950s and 1960s. Begin your studies with "The Machine That Changed the World", a five-year study of the global auto industry from MIT and go on with the "Lean Thinking" and "Lean Solutions". They give a fascinating perspective on manufacturing and plenty of examples of the lean principles and they applications. These are the books that brought lean to the mainstream. Mary and Tom Poppendieck - with a background in manufacturing and software they were leading the effort to translate the concepts of lean to software development. They have written two great books, "Implementing Lean Software Development" and "Lean Software Development - an Agile Toolkit". Both books are well worth reading a present a both the principles and lot of cases in a friendly, colloquial manner. Highly recommended! Matthew May - I really like his approach to elegance and simplicity. May has worked with Toyota and their corporate university and his book "The Elegant Solution" offers insight into their innovation process - the principles it is built on and the practices that make it work. Jeffrey Liker - his "The Toyota Way" is a very good introduction to the application of lean methods at Toyota. This is one of the best lean books I have read. Definitely a favourite! This list covers up to around 10 years ago. Please comment with recommendations for more recent books on the topic.
rr808 4y ago
Lots of people saying Toyota missed the boat on EVs. I'm not convinced the technology, infrastructure or battery supply is ready for true mass production of EVs. Toyota makes 10 million cars a year, they'll be selling good EVs soon enough to put Tesla to shame.
- urduntupu 4y ago
  Toyota is building one of the most reliable and robust cars for the masses. With attitude to build cars they will be competitive for very long.
  - speedgoose 4y ago
    But Toyota isn’t on top of the reliability rankings.
    - clouddrover 4y ago
      Toyota scored 1st and 2nd (Toyota and Lexus) in Consumers reports 2022 reliability rankings: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/who-makes-the-most-reliable-cars-a7824554938/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf... Lexus is number one in JD Power's 2023 rankings: https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-vehicle-dependability-studyvds https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-vehi...
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - qclibre22 4y ago
      https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/who-makes-the-most-reliable-cars-a7824554938/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf... : "Toyota, Lexus, and BMW are the top three most reliable brands in our annual auto reliability brand rankings" https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliability-study-2021/ https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliabil... : 5 of top 10 are Toyota
pfdietz 4y ago
We've bought Toyotas for years. All our family cars are Toyotas. I don't plan to buy another one, unless they can make a good EV.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  Hah, I am waiting for Toyota to make a well reviewed EV to buy one. Otherwise, I am fine with their ICE/hybrid options.
  - BizarreByte 4y ago
    Toyota is probably the only brand loyalty I have and yah, I’ll happily keep buying either gas or hybrids from them. I’m in no rush for electric, but when Toyota makes an EV Corolla that’ll be a sign to me EVs are actually ready for normal people. They’ve rightfully gained my trust and their seal of approval on car tech does matter to me.
    - neon_electro 4y ago
      What do you think of GM's Bolt E(U)V?
      - tonywastaken 4y ago
        For me, too expensive. Although the Corolla has gotten relatively expensive over the years.
      - throwayyy479087 4y ago
        Apparently owners LOVE them. The way they talk reminds me of the Honda Fit owner obsession.
      - BizarreByte 4y ago
        I actually quite like them but I refuse to pay for than 40kCAD for a car with the typical GM quality issues. Interior wise they're barely better than the cheapest Chev you can buy and if I'm spending that much it needs to at least be comfy.
RigelKentaurus 4y ago
RIP Mr. Toyoda. 2 random thoughts- 1. I owned a 1987 Corolla FX GTS coupe hatchback. Manual transmission, brilliant red, with fantastic sporty design and handling. Will never love a car like I did that one. 2. The JIT revolution that Toyota did so well in the 70s took a long time to spread to the US. I worked on a GM project in 2002-03 where I saw some crazy problems. The same part would be called different names in different countries, so while the South African plant was awash in some obscure part, the NJ factory had a shortage and was buying it at super expensive rates from a Japanese manufacturer. Their supply chain was an absolute shit show. More than 400k SKUs with duplicates, and in many cases, their cars were using different parts when they could have standardized to a common part. They had a poster in one of their meeting rooms saying "What would Toyota do?"
- lmm 4y ago
  That era's Corolla is legendary even now (though people tend to focus on the JDM version that had 2HP more). The GT86 was meant to be a tribute to it, although how well it succeeds is up for discussion.
  - chrisoconnell 4y ago
    While this is the same "generation" as the legendary AE86, it's worth noting that the FX Corolla's are on the AE80/EE80 chassis, featuring a FWD drivetrain or F/F layout. What made the AE86 such a legendary car was the F/R (RWD) layout and a 16valve 4A-GE engine. These were made alongside the FWD Corollas of the same years, and were quite substantially different.
throwntoday 4y ago
I've always been a die-hard Japanese auto fan, and I'd say cars were a huge influence to my interest in engineering. What he did for the industry at large alongside Honda is immeasurable. Always sad to see giants go. さよなら豊田さま
psychomugs 4y ago
Their ’90s sedans were the pinnacle of cars, so perfect that The Onion wrote their first non-satire piece on why a ‘93 Camry will outlive you and your bloodline. 完璧な車で、誠にありがとございます。 https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fact-that-owners-reall-1819577805 https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fa...
- AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
  My uncle still has a '93 Camry, to boot. I sent him that article like five years ago. He still has it. When it dies he will switch full-time to his backup vehicle, a 2005 Camry.
  - jonny_eh 4y ago
    > When it dies If
- gowld 4y ago
  How is that non-satire?
linsomniac 4y ago
TIL: Toyota is spelled with a "t" rather than "d" because with a "t" it has 8 strokes (in Japanese), which is a lucky number.

453 points by isomorph 4y ago

I've seen this news of Toyoda's passing posted across various social media channels and it's incredible to see how many Toyota owners have thanked him posthumously. I remember that when Steve Jobs died. This seems similar in a sense.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
>This seems similar in a sense. They exist in very similar segments portions of their respective industries serving very similar customer demographics (in North America). Naturally there is going to be quite a bit of evolutionary convergence.
- neoromantique 4y ago
  Are there though? Toyota is never perceived as a luxury brand, it is associated with quality, reliability and maintainability. Something that you can hardly say about Apple.
  - thfuran 4y ago
    iPhones have a far longer service live than androids.
  - cruano 4y ago
    Something that you can hardly say about the industry*
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    They didn't distribute most of their luxury platforms worldwide. E.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_Century
    - skhr0680 4y ago
      Lexus entering Japan started the slow decline of Toyota-badged luxury sedans. The Alphard is still an upper-middle class status symbol, but the people who saw Toyota as a luxury brand bought their last Crown ten years ago and are fast approaching 80. I suspect that is also the reason for the unification of Toyota badges and the Hail Mary design of the new Crown.
    - scrlk 4y ago
      The Century is such a wonderfully understated car. The European equivalent would probably be something like a VW Phaeton with the W12 engine. This marketing video from Toyota on the 2nd gen Century is a good summary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1erJ1eVmLo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s1erJ1eVmLo
  - Octoth0rpe 4y ago
    That's highly dependent upon which country you're in. In the United States, Toyota has a separate brand for their luxury offerings (Lexus), and so what you say is true. But in other countries, those nice Lexus cars are sold as Toyotas.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Yes, I came to say that if I were to buy a luxury car, it would be a fancy Toyota AKA Lexus. I wonder if most people aren't aware of that? And Cadillac is just GM? It's hardly unusual in the American market - I believe it's been called badge engineering for at least as long as I've been alive.
      - neoromantique 4y ago
        There is a reason why Toyota separated their luxury segment into a different brand.
  - dsfyu404ed 4y ago
    Apple doesn't prioritize reliability because that's not what their subset of upper middle class consumers want in a phone. Toyota doesn't prioritize cost or feature/performance parity because that's not what their subset of upper middle class consumers want in a vehicle. They both make products that are about as high as you can go in their respective market segments without getting into pure luxury and conspicuous consumption type purchases and refuse to go down-market lest they sully their brand image. In both cases they lather it up with a pretext so buyers don't feel like they're indulging in a luxury purchase. In apple's case they tightly integrate the hardware and software to assure a homogeneous user experience. In Toyota's case they try and dominate the 3rd party rankings on reliability. Of course, when you compare to the "next best" think in their class, like a Google or Samsung flagship phone or a Honda Accord you'll find that the actual difference is razor thin and that not having any "value priced garbage products" is really what's doing the reputational heavy lifting. Not wading into value priced territory is also very useful to the great many of each brand's respective customers who are willing to pay a huge premium to not have to think about it. A Toyota product may be overpriced for it's features/performance but if you just want an A to B appliance in a particular form factor it will do so with minimal maintenance expense. You won't have to waste your precious brainpower thinking about an expensive 100k service or fiddling with some gimmick feature. And on the apple side of things their tight control over the hardware-software combo results in a pretty strong guarantee of a high minimum user experience. If you just want a "nice phone" and don't wanna think about software versions, various flavors of android OS and stuff like that you can simply buy whatever iphone is in your budget? Is it the nicest phone in your budget, no. But you didn't have to waste precious brain-power comparing all the various Android options. Basically they both charge a premium for products that "just work" and they refuse to get into market niches where they can't do that, much to the benefit of their brand image. The above applies to North America only. Toyota makes a more diverse set of stuff globally and Apple doesn't dominate the same buyer demographics globally.
    - sokoloff 4y ago
      I don't know if Apple prioritizes reliability in their phones, but that seems to be an outcome of whatever they do prioritize. My family's four iPhones are: 2 iPhone X (Nov 2017), 1 XS Max (Sept 2018), and 1 13 (Sept 2021, only bought in order to hand-down one of the X to our kid). Those phones are 5, 5, 4.5, and 1.5 years old. Each of the 3 older phones was bought used when the next phone generation was released. Across our ownership, I've replaced two screens and three batteries (two were needed and one was "while I'm replacing the screen, it's easy and would be needed soon"), all DIY. I doubt we'll replace any of these phones in the next 2 years. The iPhone 8 is still getting software updates to iOS 16, so I expect the X will keep getting updates for several more years.
  - insane_dreamer 4y ago
    In the US, Lexus is on par with Merc/BMW/Audi
    - neoromantique 4y ago
      There is a reason why Toyota separated their luxury segment into a different brand.
      - machinawhite 4y ago
        Yeah, marketing. They're top trim models sure but a Lexus IS300 in Japan is still just a Toyota Altezza with leather seats and a 2JZ
  - fomine3 4y ago
    Apple iPhone is not only luxury brand but also reliability brand.
  - insane_dreamer 4y ago
    I would say the first 2 qualities are definitely associated with Apple esp compared to other phones and laptops.
  - sva_ 4y ago
    That's one way of triggering HN.
  - _yb2s 4y ago
    I disagree. The main reason I buy Apple laptops is the physical reliability... they absolutely make low end (feature wise) models that still have top notch physical quality and longevity, including historically making super bare bones school/education targeted models. I know it's a premium model, but my 2010 Macbook Pro is still going strong with zero repairs other than two battery replacements that took about 5 minutes each, after over a decade of regular hard travel use. I think I'd be lucky to get 6 months from the average PC laptop with use like that. I'd argue that my iPhone SE2 is also a product that is very much a low end non-luxury phone, but with unparalleled physical build quality. I purchased it from a budget box store as part of a cheap prepaid cell phone plan- total ownership cost will be far less than the cheapest Android phones targeted at the 3rd world, if you consider how much longer it will likely last.
    - lukas099 4y ago
      It is also nice how long Apple continues to release security updates for their phones, which I believe is longer than any Android phone manufacturer.
      - filoleg 4y ago
        Yeah, they go quite a bit back when it comes to full iOS updates, and even further back when it comes to security updates.[0] The oldest iPhone that supports the most recent full iOS version update (iOS 16) is iPhone 8, which was released in 2017. And they released a security update for iOS 12 in August of 2022 that supports iPhone 5s (released in 2013). That would make it 5 years for full OS updates and 9 years for security updates. 0. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222
    - scrlk 4y ago
      > I know it's a premium model, but my 2010 Macbook Pro is still going strong with zero repairs other than two battery replacements that took about 5 minutes each, after over a decade of regular hard travel use. I think I'd be lucky to get 6 months from the average PC laptop with use like that. Tip: don't bother with consumer grade PC laptops if you are after longevity. Only buy "business grade" machines like Lenovo ThinkPads, Dell Latitudes, HP EliteBook/ZBooks.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    iPhones and Macbooks last a long time and get software updates way longer than comparable products.
ericalexander0 4y ago
It's no coincidence. Jobs was influenced by quality philosophers like Toyoda, Deming, etc. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kib6uXQsxBA https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kib6uXQsxBA
- astrange 4y ago
  You could say Apple is basically an American copy of Sony. That's why he wore a uniform even if he couldn't get anyone else to do it.
dorfsmay 4y ago
> it's incredible to see From that statement, I'm guessing you've never owned a Camry?

ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago

> establishing a culture of quality control that helped Toyota evolve into a world-leading automaker. A lot of the JIT stuff that is so common, these days, was revolutionary, when he introduced it. I'm told that many agile techniques also had their genesis in his work.

SnowHill9902 4y ago
It was mainly Taiichi Ohno who thought and created their production system and philosophy, not Toyoda.
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago
  Ah. I was always under the impression that it was Toyoda. Thanks for the correction!
  - hef19898 4y ago
    It was , as all big achievements, a team effort. And apparently Ohno is getting not that much of coverage in internal Toyota documents and history. He also did seem to EDIT: not EDIT be the nicest of persons. He absolutely was one of the drivers during the early days of TPS.
- ericalexander0 4y ago
  Who learned the Toyota/Toyoda way from Sakichi Toyoda. https://www.toyota-industries.com/company/history/toyoda_sakichi/ https://www.toyota-industries.com/company/history/toyoda_sak...
wil421 4y ago
My father worked for a defense manufacturer making airplanes and other stuff. One of his first projects was scheduling parts for manufacturing in the late 80s. They joked at the time they used JIC (just in case) because they had so many random parts with no method to the madness. The scheduler worked out and they were able to move it off some high performance IBM (or similar) computer onto a PC that didn’t require a specialized IBM tech or support contract, written in C.

drumhead 4y ago

Taking a small local car manufacturer and turning it into the one of the worlds biggest car makers, , overtaking all the US giants and creating the JIT process to revolutionise manufacturing is remarkable.

blevin 4y ago
It really is amazing. Another way to visualize this success is to consider how physically close you are to one of Toyota’s products right now, sort of a K-nearest neighbors idea. And how many of those were manufactured in Japan, and considered notable within their category (ex: 4Runner, RAV4 Prime).
epolanski 4y ago
Toyota isn't just "one of the worlds biggest car makers" it is THE biggest car maker on the planet. They sell 25% more cars than the Volkswagen group (second biggest car maker on the planet) which includes Volkswagen, SEAT, Skoda, Porsche, Bentley and Audi and 50% more than Stellantins (which includes Fiat, Citroen, Peaugeot, Jeep, Ram, Alfa Romeo, Chrysler, Opel and another 6 manufacturers). It's just impressive how many cars Toyota sells. Toyota and Lexus also generally turn buyers into recurrent customers as few brands on this planet do. If "no one got fired for buying Intel", I think it's fair to say that "no one got it wrong by buying a Toyota/Lexus". I just can't think any car manufacturer that gives you as much as Toyota for the price you pay.
- clouddrover 4y ago
  > They sell 25% more cars than the Volkswagen group (second biggest car maker on the planet) No. Volkswagen and Toyota are pretty even. They swap positions as the biggest car maker. Volkswagen became the biggest in 2017 but Toyota became the biggest again in 2021: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/business/toyota-volkswagen-japan-germany-intl-hnk/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2021/01/28/business/toyota-volkswage...
  - epolanski 4y ago
    I was referring to 2022 sales, not historical data. In 2022 Toyota sold 2.5M cars more which means a 30% bump over VW group.

notlukesky 4y ago

I remember being shocked in the 90s at finding out the Toyota Corolla had the highest value retention of any car according to the Kelly Blue Book. And then there was the NUMMI joint-venture of Toyota and GM and the same exact cars that would come out of that factory would have different value retention. Obviously the GM car would depreciate more in value. Brand reputation clearly matters. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NUMMI Tesla has now taken over the NUMMI facilities.

dsfyu404ed 4y ago
Brand reputation is a positive feedback loop. Better reputation -> charge more money -> poorer people who are gonna use your product at 11/10ths and try and skate by with the bare minimum of proactive maintenance buy it less -> the average example on the road is in better condition for its age -> high end consumers go "hey those things are lasting well I'll buy one" -> your average customer is richer so you don't have to cheap out in as many places on your product -> GoTo(step 2). Of course the process needs to be kick started with a couple actual good products but once it takes off you're basically home free if you don't f it up. The whole "the same GM car deprecated more" makes for great online virtue points from fanboys but it's not exactly illustrative of anything that isn't well known to be from other factors. The versions of otherwise identical cars that are preferred by higher end consumers will hold value better because they get treated better and kept nicer resulting in higher value at any given age/mileage. You can see this trend in action if you cross shop badge engineered cars that are old enough that purchase price no longer has any bearing on price.
- kube-system 4y ago
  Yep. The opposite feedback loop is “big Altima energy”. The $1000 cheaper new cars become the preferred cars of those who don’t care or can’t really afford it, which end up being the cheapest and most abused used cars. Which end up on buy-here-pay-here lots. And repeat.
  - creaturemachine 4y ago

thenerdhead 4y ago

Jeffrey Liker wrote a number of books on Toyota and his involvement(The Toyota Way for example). What is so inspiring is seeing all the generations of Toyoda build upon each other's work creating something so respected in the industry and extends to many people's personal development based on their principles alone. So many great things have come from their philosophy. What a titan.

lvl102 4y ago

Made in Japan Toyota are built different. There’s something special about manufacturing in Japan even down to a simple screw.

ethbr0 4y ago
My first manager was an ex-military crew-chief who was stationed in Japan for a bit. In his words, "Whatever your job is, you take pride in it and try to do it the best you can every day. If you're a gas station attendant, you try to be the best gas station attendant you can be." His description obviously stuck with me, as it's a nice summary of a fundamental social bargain: everyone is important and valued, and in exchange everyone will put in effort. I know everything isn't peaches and roses in Japanese culture and society, but it makes a good point that excellence is pervasive throughout an organization... or not at all.
- Aperocky 4y ago
  > everyone is important and valued This statement is in seeming conflict well documented hierarchical nature of Japanese society.
  - ethbr0 4y ago
    My understand is it's more complicated than that: while inequitable, there's also a corresponding expectation of duty to those below one. E.g. jobs for life
  - redwall_hp 4y ago
    That's a very western lens still. Hierarchy doesn't mean you view those under you with contempt. The entire concept of a team, on a micro scale, is that it has a leader who is invested in the group's success and people who choose to follow them because they think the leader respects them and can provide the necessary coordination. Toxic individualism doesn't get things done, nor does it encourage excellence. A hierarchy with mutual respect does, though it must be fair and tempered with reasonable mobility.

losvedir 4y ago

I had a Toyota. It was a great car, and a real testament to the engineering prowess Toyoda established. I see very clear, very interesting Innovator's Dilemma vibes, though, in how widely they've missed the boat on EVs. I wouldn't be surprised if we see Toyota lose its dominance in the coming decade. It's sad, since the Prius was such a gamechanger. Maybe the passing of the torch here will let them start to catch up.

namdnay 4y ago
I think there’s enough time for them to catch up, look how far the Koreans have come in less than ten years
- Dalewyn 4y ago
  I'm happy to bet it's not happening. Japan is far too busy fighting amongst themselves and/or catering to themselves first and foremost. South Korea, Taiwan, and China slayed Japan because they played for keeps and pulled no punches. Japan simply does not have the correct mindset to deliberately (re)conquer and succeed. If this sounds brutal and/or flippant, allow me to say that I'm saying this as a Japanese-American. I will happily use my blood to shit talk my heritage, because honestly it's a fucking shame and it's even more shameful that Japan can't (read: won't) dig themselves out.
  - insane_dreamer 4y ago
    But don’t Toyota and Honda still own the sedan market in the US (Corolla/Prius/Camry/Civic/Accord)? I’m pretty sure they’re stronger than the Koreans in the compact/midsize SUV market too (CRV, RAV4). Koreans might be stronger elsewhere, not sure.
    - Dalewyn 4y ago
      Cars are one of the few industries Japan still holds the crown of, but if past track records in other industries are anything to go by I expect that a changing of the crown is only a matter of time. Anyone who is familiar with computing history should know of Japan's practically disasterous fall from grace in nearly everything related to the computer industry. I've also seen that exact cycle of falling play out countless times in their other industries. I'm sick and tired of Japan continuing to lose and eat dirt, I would be ecstatic to be proven wrong. But Japan just doesn't have the mindset to (re)win customers in the 21st century.

mjul 4y ago

The Toyota Production System was established during Shoichiro Toyoda's leadership. It is the company's "operating system" if you will, and has made an enormous impact, both in the auto industry and in other fields such as IT. "Lean" manufacturing, a term from Womack & Jones, is based on their research into this. If you want to dive in, here is my reading list for essential books on how Toyota came to build high quality cars at scale, and how it transfers to other disciplines. W. Edwards Deming - the grand old man of the field, building on a strict statistical discipline. His book "Out of the Crisis" is a wonderful treatise on his thinking including his famous "14 Points for Management". This is definitely a must read that will change the way you think about management and quality. Deming provided the inspiration for the quality movement that powered post-war Japanese manufacturing. Taiichi Ohno - one of the greatest industrial innovators of the 20th century, the father of the Toyota Production System. After spending his career relentlessly optimizing manufacturing at Toyota he wrote the book "Toyota Production System: Beyond Large-scale Production" that describes his work. Womack & Jones - Their books are great and it is well worth to read them all to see a lot of the principles and case studies for lean thinking. Also, it is quite interesting to see that software development is now rediscovering some of the things that manufacturing learned much earlier - in the case of Toyota as early as in the 1950s and 1960s. Begin your studies with "The Machine That Changed the World", a five-year study of the global auto industry from MIT and go on with the "Lean Thinking" and "Lean Solutions". They give a fascinating perspective on manufacturing and plenty of examples of the lean principles and they applications. These are the books that brought lean to the mainstream. Mary and Tom Poppendieck - with a background in manufacturing and software they were leading the effort to translate the concepts of lean to software development. They have written two great books, "Implementing Lean Software Development" and "Lean Software Development - an Agile Toolkit". Both books are well worth reading a present a both the principles and lot of cases in a friendly, colloquial manner. Highly recommended! Matthew May - I really like his approach to elegance and simplicity. May has worked with Toyota and their corporate university and his book "The Elegant Solution" offers insight into their innovation process - the principles it is built on and the practices that make it work. Jeffrey Liker - his "The Toyota Way" is a very good introduction to the application of lean methods at Toyota. This is one of the best lean books I have read. Definitely a favourite! This list covers up to around 10 years ago. Please comment with recommendations for more recent books on the topic.

rr808 4y ago

Lots of people saying Toyota missed the boat on EVs. I'm not convinced the technology, infrastructure or battery supply is ready for true mass production of EVs. Toyota makes 10 million cars a year, they'll be selling good EVs soon enough to put Tesla to shame.

urduntupu 4y ago
Toyota is building one of the most reliable and robust cars for the masses. With attitude to build cars they will be competitive for very long.
- speedgoose 4y ago
  But Toyota isn’t on top of the reliability rankings.
  - clouddrover 4y ago
    Toyota scored 1st and 2nd (Toyota and Lexus) in Consumers reports 2022 reliability rankings: https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/who-makes-the-most-reliable-cars-a7824554938/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf... Lexus is number one in JD Power's 2023 rankings: https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-vehicle-dependability-studyvds https://www.jdpower.com/business/press-releases/2023-us-vehi...
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - qclibre22 4y ago
    https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisfaction/who-makes-the-most-reliable-cars-a7824554938/ https://www.consumerreports.org/car-reliability-owner-satisf... : "Toyota, Lexus, and BMW are the top three most reliable brands in our annual auto reliability brand rankings" https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliability-study-2021/ https://www.forbes.com/wheels/news/consumer-reports-reliabil... : 5 of top 10 are Toyota

pfdietz 4y ago

We've bought Toyotas for years. All our family cars are Toyotas. I don't plan to buy another one, unless they can make a good EV.

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Hah, I am waiting for Toyota to make a well reviewed EV to buy one. Otherwise, I am fine with their ICE/hybrid options.
- BizarreByte 4y ago
  Toyota is probably the only brand loyalty I have and yah, I’ll happily keep buying either gas or hybrids from them. I’m in no rush for electric, but when Toyota makes an EV Corolla that’ll be a sign to me EVs are actually ready for normal people. They’ve rightfully gained my trust and their seal of approval on car tech does matter to me.
  - neon_electro 4y ago
    What do you think of GM's Bolt E(U)V?
    - tonywastaken 4y ago
      For me, too expensive. Although the Corolla has gotten relatively expensive over the years.
    - throwayyy479087 4y ago
      Apparently owners LOVE them. The way they talk reminds me of the Honda Fit owner obsession.
    - BizarreByte 4y ago
      I actually quite like them but I refuse to pay for than 40kCAD for a car with the typical GM quality issues. Interior wise they're barely better than the cheapest Chev you can buy and if I'm spending that much it needs to at least be comfy.

RigelKentaurus 4y ago

RIP Mr. Toyoda. 2 random thoughts- 1. I owned a 1987 Corolla FX GTS coupe hatchback. Manual transmission, brilliant red, with fantastic sporty design and handling. Will never love a car like I did that one. 2. The JIT revolution that Toyota did so well in the 70s took a long time to spread to the US. I worked on a GM project in 2002-03 where I saw some crazy problems. The same part would be called different names in different countries, so while the South African plant was awash in some obscure part, the NJ factory had a shortage and was buying it at super expensive rates from a Japanese manufacturer. Their supply chain was an absolute shit show. More than 400k SKUs with duplicates, and in many cases, their cars were using different parts when they could have standardized to a common part. They had a poster in one of their meeting rooms saying "What would Toyota do?"

lmm 4y ago
That era's Corolla is legendary even now (though people tend to focus on the JDM version that had 2HP more). The GT86 was meant to be a tribute to it, although how well it succeeds is up for discussion.
- chrisoconnell 4y ago
  While this is the same "generation" as the legendary AE86, it's worth noting that the FX Corolla's are on the AE80/EE80 chassis, featuring a FWD drivetrain or F/F layout. What made the AE86 such a legendary car was the F/R (RWD) layout and a 16valve 4A-GE engine. These were made alongside the FWD Corollas of the same years, and were quite substantially different.

throwntoday 4y ago

I've always been a die-hard Japanese auto fan, and I'd say cars were a huge influence to my interest in engineering. What he did for the industry at large alongside Honda is immeasurable. Always sad to see giants go. さよなら豊田さま

psychomugs 4y ago

Their ’90s sedans were the pinnacle of cars, so perfect that The Onion wrote their first non-satire piece on why a ‘93 Camry will outlive you and your bloodline. 完璧な車で、誠にありがとございます。 https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fact-that-owners-reall-1819577805 https://www.theonion.com/toyota-recalls-1993-camry-due-to-fa...

AdmiralAsshat 4y ago
My uncle still has a '93 Camry, to boot. I sent him that article like five years ago. He still has it. When it dies he will switch full-time to his backup vehicle, a 2005 Camry.
- jonny_eh 4y ago
  > When it dies If
gowld 4y ago
How is that non-satire?

linsomniac 4y ago

TIL: Toyota is spelled with a "t" rather than "d" because with a "t" it has 8 strokes (in Japanese), which is a lucky number.