Skip to main content

Toyota finally gets serious about electric vehicles, puts President in charge of EV program

Today, Toyota announced changes in executives’ areas of responsibility, as well as personnel changes at the sub-executive managerial level. The most important change by far is the appointment of Akio Toyoda, the company’s CEO and grandson of founder Kiichiro Toyoda, as President of a new ‘EV Business Planning’ department.

Earlier this month, we reported–admittedly a little tongue-in-cheek–about Toyota announcing the creation of an electric vehicle division and putting only 4 engineers on the project with the goal to bring EVs to market by 2020.

The move seems a lot more serious now that Akio Toyoda is leading the effort, and several other executives, managers, and engineers have been assigned new responsibilities in the electric vehicle planning department, including the chief engineer of the Prius.

At the executive level, the changes will be effective today, while the managers were apparently put on the program throughout the month. You can see the full list of changes below.

It appears to be a clear sign that Toyota is more serious than ever about electric vehicles and it is not simply investing in fuel cell hydrogen to comply to new fuel consumption standards.

  1. Changes to executives’ areas of responsibility
(effective December 1, 2016)
Name Current New
Akio Toyoda President
EV Business Planning Dept. (chief officer)
Mitsuhisa Kato Executive Vice President
Frontier Research Center (chief officer)
Executive Vice President
  • Frontier Research Center (chief officer)
  • EV Business Planning Dept. (chief officer)
Shigeki Terashi
Executive Vice President
  • Strategic Top Executive Meeting Office (secretary general)
  • Corporate Strategy Div. (chief officer)
  • Research Div. (chief officer)
Executive Vice President
  • Strategic Top Executive Meeting Office (secretary general)
  • EV Business Planning Dept. (chief officer)
  • Corporate Strategy Div. (chief officer)
  • Research Div. (chief officer)
Koki Konishi Managing Officer
Mid-size Vehicle Company (executive vice president)
Managing Officer
General Administration & Human Resources Group
  1. Changes to executive general managers’ areas of responsibility
(effective November 1, 2016)
Name Current New
Shinichi Yasui
Mid-size Vehicle Company
  • ZS (chief officer), ZV (chief officer),
    ZD (chief officer), ZE (chief officer),
    ZF (chief officer)
Mid-size Vehicle Company
  • ZS (chief officer), ZV (chief officer),
    ZD (chief officer), ZE (chief officer),
    ZF (chief officer, concurrent chief engineer)
  1. Personnel changes at the sub-executive managerial level
(effective November 1, 2016)
Name Current New
Kouji Toyoshima MSZ, Mid-size Vehicle Company (chief engineer)
  • MSZ, Mid-size Vehicle Company (chief engineer)
  • EV Business Planning Dept. (preliminary organization) (general manager)
(effective November 14, 2016)
Name Current New
Kenichi Komuro Temporary External Transfer from
Aisin Seiki Co., Ltd.
EV Business Planning Dept. (preliminary organization) (project general manager)
(effective December 1, 2016)
Name Current New
Kouji Toyoshima
  • MSZ, Mid-size Vehicle Company (chief engineer)
  • EV Business Planning Dept. (preliminary organization) (general manager)
EV Business Planning Dept.
(general manager, concurrent chief engineer)
Kenichi Komuro EV Business Planning Dept. (preliminary organization) (project general manager) EV Business Planning Dept. (project general manager)

 

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Stay up to date with the latest content by subscribing to Electrek on Google News. You’re reading Electrek— experts who break news about Tesla, electric vehicles, and green energy, day after day. Be sure to check out our homepage for all the latest news, and follow Electrek on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to stay in the loop. Don’t know where to start? Check out our YouTube channel for the latest reviews.

Comments

Author

Avatar for Fred Lambert Fred Lambert

Fred is the Editor in Chief and Main Writer at Electrek.

You can send tips on Twitter (DMs open) or via email: fred@9to5mac.com

Through Zalkon.com, you can check out Fred’s portfolio and get monthly green stock investment ideas.