Toyota boss wins World Car Person of the Year

Akio Toyoda, president and chief executive officer of Toyota, has been crowned the 2021 World Car Person of the Year.

He describes the win as a “tremendous honour” after being chosen for the top prize by the World Car Awards’ jury panel, which is made up of 93 international journalists.

The award was created in 2018 to acknowledge and celebrate an individual who has made a significant contribution to the global automotive industry.

The panel praised Toyoda, pictured, for keeping Toyota profitable in 2020 despite Covid-19 and helping protect jobs worldwide. 

“He has maintained Toyota's pace of steady development for the connected, autonomous, shared and electric era, and he has initiated construction of the Woven City, an exciting real-life prototype city of the future,” the awards say in a statement. 

“All while actively participating in motorsports himself, as a driver.”

In accepting the gong, Toyoda sung the praises of Toyota’s 360,000 employees worldwide and recognised the “contributions of the entire automotive industry”. 

“I would like to change this award from car ‘person’ of the year to car ‘people’ of the year… because it’s the collective effort of all our global employees, retailers and suppliers that has truly made Toyota what it is today,” he notes. 

“And I for one, couldn’t be a luckier or a more grateful CEO.

“At Toyota we are very fortunate that we were able to protect the employment of our team members during Covid and to continue our work to meet the future challenges of our industry. 

“This has been a difficult period in the history of the world, but it has also reminded us that people are what matters most and if we at Toyota, can contribute some measure of happiness to their lives, it will be my never-ending goal to do just that.

“Thank you again for this award… and to my fellow car lovers, see you on the track.”

Toyoda won the award ahead of four other finalists, who were Pratap Bose, vice-president of global design for Tata Motors, Euisun Chung, chairman of Hyundai, Luc Donckerwolke, chief creative officer at Hyundai, and Tomiko Takeuchi, Mazda’s program manager for the MX-30.

Last year’s World Car Person of the Year was Carlos Tavares, the then chief executive of the PSA Group who helped deliver a merger with Fiat Chrysler that created the Stellantis group.

The honour is one of six awards handed out annually by the World Car Awards, with 2020’s top vehicles due to be announced on April 20.