For The Autopian: Akio Toyoda Was The Enthusiast’s CEO. But He May Have Gotten The Future All Wrong
Off the top of your head and without doing a quick Google search, how many auto industry CEOs can you name? There’s the obvious one, the one who’s in the news every day. There’s Mary Barra, the trailblazing first woman to lead General Motors and the one who helped right its ship after the Great Recession and the bailout. You may also be able to name Jim Farley, the relative newcomer to the top job at a car company, and a bit of a swashbuckler with an affinity for Mustangs and strapping himself into race cars when other executives would rather play golf.
Then there’s Akio Toyoda. He’s an easy one, and not just because it’s his family’s company and his (slightly modified) name is on all the cars. Since taking the reins as president and chief executive of one of the world’s biggest car companies in 2009, Toyoda proved time and time again to be the gearhead’s CEO, the enthusiast’s CEO—one who put his money where his mouth was to inject fun back into the conservative brand while safeguarding its profits, its reputation for quality and its massive global presence.
But as time goes on, Toyoda has seemed increasingly on the wrong side of history in the crucial area of battery electric vehicles. In the post-Akio era of Toyota, the company’s being forced to race faster than any Supra GT4 to catch up to its countless rivals in the EV space.
