Op-Ed: Hiroshi Okuda–The Man Who Saved Toyota by Forcing It to Change

This is a look back at Hiroshi Okuda, the former Toyota chairman who died August 8 at age 93, and the bet he made that shaped the car market many homeowners now shop in. Okuda took over Toyota's leadership in 1995 and pushed the company to build the Prius a year ahead of its planned schedule, timing its debut to December 1997, right after the Kyoto climate conference. That gamble on hybrid technology, pairing a gas engine with an electric motor, turned into the profit engine behind Toyota's entire lineup and set the pattern for the hybrids and plug-in hybrids sold today.

The piece also notes a lesser-known bet from the same era: the RAV4 EV, an early battery-electric SUV Toyota sold in small numbers in Japan starting in 1996 and in the U.S. starting in 1997, using nickel-metal hydride batteries for a range of roughly 120 to 200 kilometers per charge. It never caught on the way the Prius did, partly because charging infrastructure wasn't ready, but it proved Toyota could build a working EV decades before electric cars became mainstream.

None of this changes any current rebate, incentive, or program for homeowners. It's a historical piece on how one executive's decisions helped set the direction toward hybrid and electric vehicles that shaped the choices available in today's car market.