Toyota

Founded in 1937 by Kiichiro Toyoda, the Toyota Motor Corp. is the world’s market leader in sales for hybrid electric vehicles. They are also known for their encouragement of the mass-market adoption of hybrid vehicles around the globe.

Toyota introduced the first hybrid vehicle in 1997 -- the Prius -- which has been one of the best-selling hybrids in the world.

Over the years Toyota has supported many philanthropic work in industries such as disaster-relief, education, safety and conservation. Next to Honda, Toyota vehicles are often best in class for safety.

Newer vehicles come with the Toyota Safety Sense active safety package that aids night visibility, lane deviation support and collision avoidance.

Through continual analysis of accidents and passenger injuries, Toyota strives to continually upgrade, update and reinvent their vehicles to be among the safest on the road. They conduct their own original accident investigations and collect international and domestic crash data.

Additionally, Toyota vehicles have been praised for their safety by third-party organizations, such as the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

Toyota vehicles are durable, long-lasting automobiles especially when genuine Toyota parts are used in maintenance and repairs. In fact, 80 percent of Toyota vehicles that were sold in the last 20 years are still on the road.

Toyota has also pushed a strong “go green” initiative in recent years as they continue to focus on environmentally sustainable solutions for their vehicles and the car-making process.

The company has 28 facilities in North America that are designated as Zero Waste Businesses for saving more than 54 million gallons of water annually, with 96 percent of their annual waste reduced, reused, recycled or composted.

Toyota has also begun research into artificial intelligence and has jumped onto the self-driving car bandwagon. Their mission is to help those with limited mobility — from age or health — improve their everyday living.

More than 14 Toyota manufacturing plants operate in North America and more than 1 million Lexus and Toyota vehicles are assembled in the United States.

Company officials say they have created more than 350,000 U.S. jobs and have invested more than $18 billion into the nation’s economy.