- Shareholders rejected a proposal to increase climate stress disclosures and approved all 10 proposed board members at the annual general meeting in Toyota City.
- Toyota on Tuesday introduced its full lineup of battery electric cars with “next generation” batteries starting in 2026.
- Japanese companies are facing increasing pressure to better engage their shareholders in improving capital efficiency and overall profitability.
People arrive for Toyota Motor Corporation’s annual shareholder meeting in Toyota City, Aichi Prefecture on June 14, 2023. Toyota is under pressure from large institutional investors until Chairman Akio Toyoda steps down over his half-hearted embrace of electric vehicles.
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A handful of foreign institutional investors were furious at the reappointment of Toyoda — the grandson of the founder of Toyota Motors — as chairman, objecting to the independence of the company’s board of directors, given that he was Toyota’s CEO until April 1 of this year. .
Some investors have also criticized the company’s strategy to focus on multiple fronts across hybrid, petrol and electric cars, hurting its competitiveness. Toyota argues this helps meet the diverse needs of customers in different regions, which they expect will differ more in the future — vowing to “accelerate localization” in plans it unveiled Tuesday.
Toyota aims to achieve sales of 1.5 million fully electric vehicles annually by 2026, and to sell 3.5 million fully electric vehicles annually by 2030.
The unprecedented challenges by Toyota shareholders this year come as Japanese companies come under increasing pressure to better engage their shareholders in improving capital efficiency and overall profitability.
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