Mergers and acquisitions

In 1966, Toyota acquired Hino, which built trucks; commercial trucks from Toyota still carry the Hino name. Hino is currently gaining in popularity in Europe, and is the sales leader for medium and heavy-duty diesel trucks in Japan. After building its first truck as far back as 1913 (when it was part of Tokyo Gas), what had been the truck division of Tokyo Gas (and which was now called Diesel Motor Industry Company) split off its commercial truck and diesel engine division into Hino; the remaining part of the company would become Isuzu. Hino did build standard cars for a time, using designs licensed from Renault, but stopped in 1967 to concentrate on heavy trucks (and avoid competing with the rest of Toyota). Hino currently makes a wide variety of heavy trucks and buses, and was involved in designing and/or producing the Tacoma, T100, 4Runner (HiLux Surf), Sequoia, and Tundra.

In 1967, Toyota took control of Daihatsu (founded in 1907 as Hatsudoki Seizo Co., Ltd), but Toyota did not actually buy the whole company until 1999. Daihatsu sold cars in the US from 1988 to 1992, with their Charade and Rocky making almost no impact; when Toyota bought into the company, it made a three-wheeled car and military four-wheel-drive vehicles. Daihatsu sold vehicles based on Toyotas, along, possibly, with its own designs; their small cars and four wheel drive vehicles have a following. Daihatsu supplies vehicles and major components to other automakers, and appears to be popular in South America.

Denso was not acquired, but was simply spun off of Toyota after World War II; it was once Toyota’s electrical component division. It currently is a roughly $26 billion business with over 100,000 employees and over 170 subsidiaries, selling parts to many major automakers including American companies.