Eiji Toyoda, who spearheaded Toyota Motor Corp.’s expansion in the United States as the automaker’s longest-serving president, died Sept. 17 in Toyota City, Japan. He was 100.
Toyota Motor announced the death and said the cause was a heart ailment.
Mr. Toyoda helped reshape a maker of Chevrolet knockoffs into an automaker whose manufacturing efficiency became the envy of General Motors and Ford Motor Co. By the time Mr. Toyoda stepped down in 1994, the company was assembling Corollas in the United States, had started the Lexus luxury brand and had initiated a project that would develop the world’s most successful gas-electric hybrid, the Prius.
Toyoda was a younger cousin of Kiichiro Toyoda, the founder of the company that bears a slightly altered version of the family’s name. He was one of six company presidents to come from the family.
