Toyota CEO Kenta Kon believes they have too many cars, pushes for efficiency

Just as Toyota Motor Corporation’s newest CEO, Kenta Kon, has assumed his new position on Toyota’s board, he faces a new challenge as the brand is no longer Japan’s most valuable company, as, according to a report from Reuters, that spot is now taken by SoftBank Group, the country’s biggest tech and telecom company.

Due to a perfect storm of tariffs, Chinese competition, and other global factors, Toyota faces its third straight year of losses—and its new CEO pledges to make Toyota lean and more efficient once again. This starts with identifying the inefficiencies within the brand and removing them, with one of these being the large number of new model variations.

READ: Toyota reportedly pauses Lexus LF-ZC development amidst global EV slump

According to another report by Autonews, this is one of Toyota’s pain points, where different regions often have region-specific models that cater to specific needs, but then you can see that these models can often be consolidated with one globally available model.

“If you go to a development division, you see issues such as an increasing number of different specifications and variants being created, which in turn is driving up costs. If there are areas within those activities that aren’t truly value-adding work, or where work isn’t being done efficiently, then we need to take a closer look at them,” said Kenta Kon.

We’ve already started seeing this with the sudden halting of development of the production model of the LF-ZC, which was allegedly supposed to be the next-generation IS sports sedan in battery electric form.

The automaker is still dedicated to its multi-pathway approach to carbon neutrality by utilizing multiple powertrains, with a boost of hybrid vehicle production for the coming future. Kenta Kon is not a self-professed car guy and more of a money man, unlike his predecessors, Akio Toyoda and Koji Sato, but perhaps he is what Toyota needs to survive this new decade.

^{Photos from Toyota and Sam Surla}