Who Makes Toyota? The Company, Its Brands and Where the Cars Are Built

The Short Answer: Toyota Motor Corporation

Toyota Motor Corporation owns the Toyota brand, designs its vehicles and controls their production. The company grew out of Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, a Japanese textile machinery maker. Kiichiro Toyoda, the son of the loom company's founder, started an automobile department there, and it became a separate company in 1937. Members of the Toyoda family have stayed involved in company leadership. The company itself is publicly owned by shareholders and is not a family-owned private business.

In North America, the company runs its sales, engineering and manufacturing through regional subsidiaries grouped under Toyota Motor North America, which is based in Plano, Texas. These subsidiaries are wholly part of the Toyota organization. So a Toyota built in Kentucky or Texas is made by Toyota, not by a licensed outside manufacturer.

Brands Toyota Owns or Controls

When people ask who makes Toyota, they sometimes mean the reverse: which other brands belong to Toyota. The main ones are:

Toyota: the core brand, covering cars, SUVs, trucks, minivans and hybrids. Lexus: Toyota's luxury brand, launched in 1989. Lexus vehicles often share platforms and powertrain components with Toyota models but use their own styling, interiors and dealer network. GR (Gazoo Racing): Toyota's performance sub-brand, used on models such as the GR86, GR Supra and GR Corolla. It is a badge within Toyota, not a separate manufacturer. Daihatsu: a Japanese maker of small cars and kei vehicles, wholly owned by Toyota. Daihatsu does not sell cars in the US. Hino: a commercial truck and bus manufacturer in which Toyota has held a controlling stake. Its corporate structure has been under reorganization, so check current status if it matters to you.

Scion was a youth-oriented Toyota brand sold in the US from the 2004 to 2016 model years. After Scion ended, several of its models continued under the Toyota name.

Partners and Minority Stakes

Toyota holds minority ownership stakes in several other Japanese automakers, including Subaru, Mazda, Suzuki and Isuzu. These stakes support technical cooperation and joint projects. They do not give Toyota full control of those companies, which still operate as separate brands with their own engineering and products.

Toyota is also the center of a wider industrial group often called the Toyota Group. It includes large parts suppliers such as Denso and Aisin, as well as Toyota Industries, the descendant of the original loom company. These firms supply components like electronics, transmissions and other systems to Toyota. They are separate companies with their own shareholders.

Toyota Models Built by Other Companies

A small number of Toyota-badged vehicles are co-developed with a partner or assembled outside Toyota's own plants. Well-known examples from the US market include:

Toyota 86 and GR86: co-developed with Subaru and built by Subaru in Japan alongside the closely related Subaru BRZ. GR Supra (fifth generation): developed jointly with BMW. It uses BMW-sourced engines and is assembled by contract manufacturer Magna Steyr in Austria, on the same line as the BMW Z4. Yaris sedan and hatchback (later US model years before the nameplate left the US market): based on the Mazda2 and built by Mazda in Mexico. bZ4X: developed jointly with Subaru, which sells a related model called the Solterra.

In other regions, Toyota sells additional models built by partners, such as small cars supplied by Daihatsu or Suzuki. These arrangements vary by market specification and model generation. A model that is co-built in one country may be produced in-house elsewhere, or the reverse.

Where Toyota Cars for the US Market Are Built

Toyota has a large North American manufacturing network, and many Toyotas sold in the US are assembled in the US, Canada or Mexico. Other models, particularly some smaller cars, specialty vehicles and many Lexus models, are imported from Japan. Toyota's main North American vehicle assembly locations include:

Location | Type of facility; Georgetown, Kentucky | Vehicle assembly plant, one of Toyota's largest; has built models such as Camry and RAV4 variants; Princeton, Indiana | Vehicle assembly; has built Highlander-family SUVs and Sienna; San Antonio, Texas | Vehicle assembly focused on full-size trucks and SUVs, such as Tundra and Sequoia; Blue Springs, Mississippi | Vehicle assembly; has built Corolla; Huntsville, Alabama | Joint-venture vehicle plant with Mazda (Corolla Cross on the Toyota side), plus a separate Toyota engine plant; Buffalo, West Virginia | Engine and transmission production; Liberty, North Carolina | Battery production for electrified vehicles; Cambridge and Woodstock, Ontario, Canada | Vehicle assembly, including RAV4 and Lexus models; Guanajuato and Baja California, Mexico | Vehicle assembly, including Tacoma pickups

Plant assignments change with model year, model generation and powertrain configuration. A hybrid version of a model can come from a different plant than the gas-only version, and production can move when a new generation launches. Treat the table as a general guide, not a guarantee of where a particular vehicle was built.

How to Tell Where a Specific Toyota Was Made

If the build location matters to you, for example for parts content, resale considerations or personal preference, check the individual vehicle rather than relying on the model name.

Check the first character of the VIN (vehicle identification number). It identifies the country of manufacture: J means Japan; 1, 4 or 5 means the United States; 2 means Canada; and 3 means Mexico. Read the window sticker on new vehicles. US window stickers list the final assembly point, plus the country of origin for the engine and transmission and the share of US and Canadian parts content. Look at the door-jamb label. The manufacturer's certification label on the driver's door jamb typically shows the month and year of manufacture and the manufacturing entity. Use a VIN decoder. Many free decoders show the assembly plant, model year, trim level, body style and engine for a given VIN.

What This Means for Buyers

For most shoppers, the key point is that every Toyota is engineered under Toyota's standards and backed by Toyota's warranty and dealer network. That holds whether it rolled off a line in Japan, Kentucky or Mexico, and it also holds for the few models built by partners such as Subaru or Magna Steyr. Partner-built models can still matter in ownership details. Some parts or service know-how may be shared with the partner brand's version of the car, and in a few cases you may find the same vehicle sold under another badge at a different price or with different trim levels.

In short, Toyota Motor Corporation of Japan makes Toyota cars. It also owns Lexus and Daihatsu, holds stakes in several other Japanese automakers, and builds a large share of its US-market vehicles in North America. To know exactly who built and where a particular Toyota was assembled, check that vehicle's VIN and window sticker.