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| History |
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| Tenfold-plus Growth Achieved in 10 Years through the Family Car Boom |
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Kiichiro Toyota(right) , the founder of Toyota Motor and Sakichi Toyota(left), the inventor of an automatic loom and his father |
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In only 30 years after the end of World War II, Japan's automotive industry achieved what can be said to be miraculously high growth. In 1983, Japan surpassed the United States to become the biggest automotive powerhouse of the world. The engine for growth was the blossoming of motorization in Japan and the growth of exports.
Not long after the end of WWII, manufacturing was limited to small-scale production centered on trucks. However, after the "People's Car" plan of 1955 and the 1961 enactment of the Installment Sales Law, motorization blossomed in Japan during the high-growth era of the 1960s. Domestic sales of automobiles, which were only 400 thousand vehicles in 1960, hit the 1 million vehicles mark in 1963, and expanded to 2 million vehicles in 1966. |
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| When motorization first began, the market primarily consisted of corporate demand for vehicles such as trucks. Passenger cars, too, were often utilized as hired limousines, taxis, etc. However, after the launch of the Nissan Sunny and Toyota Corolla, an all-out family car boom erupted in Japan from the latter part of the 1960s. In 1968, domestic sales of passenger and commercial cars combined exceeded 4 million vehicles. And in 1969, the number of passenger cars sold surpassed, for the first time, the sales volume of commercial vehicles. With the expansion of domestic demand, the number of automobiles manufactured in Japan, which was only 480 thousand in 1960, exceeded 5 million in 1970. Tenfold-plus high growth was achieved in only 10 years. |
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| Domestic Manufacturing Hits 10 Million Vehicles through Increased Exports |
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| Exports grew at a rapid pace from the latter part of the 1960s through the 1970s and became a driving force for the expansion of domestic production. Especially large expansion was seen in the export of passenger cars such as the Corolla and Sunny. In 1965, the Japanese export of automobiles came to a halt at 190 thousand vehicles. However, once core automotive exports switched to passenger cars, it expanded at a rapid pace, hitting 1 million vehicles in 1970 and the 2 million in 1973. The momentum of exports showed no sign of slowing down, and exports were close to 3.71 million vehicles in 1976, and 6 million in 1980. |
With such expansion of exports in the background, domestic production expanded from 5.28 million vehicles in 1970 to 11.04 million in 1980. Japan became an automotive producer second only to the United States. The status of automobiles manufactured in Japan also rose as domestic production expanded.
In the beginning, Japanese cars gained shares of the U.S. market by leveraging its lower cost as compared with American automobiles. However, the appreciation of the value of the yen advanced after the transition to a floating exchange rate system triggered by U.S. President Richard Nixon's 1971 declaration. Furthermore, the first oil crisis erupted in 1973, and costs rose in Japan, which was an importer of raw materials. Despite such circumstances, the Japanese automotive industry was able to greatly enhance the international competitiveness of Japanese cars. |
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Toyopet CROWN RS ,the first full-scale mass-production passenger car in Toyota, announced in January of 1955 |
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| This was a result of active measures such as dealing with high-mix low volume production through the introduction of numerical control machine tools, industrial robots, etc.; responding to energy-saving needs through cost reduction and quality improvement brought about by in-house suggestions systems, improving engines and fuel consumption as well as rational design of the car body; and dealing with auto emission regulations. |
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