News of Bahrain
Lifestyle17 August 20261 min read

Toyota ex-chief Okuda, pioneer of the Prius, dead at 93

By SK. TDT | Tokyo Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com Former Toyota head Hiroshi Okuda, credited with championing the pioneering Prius hybrid and turning the Japanese automaker into a global titan, has died aged 93, the firm said Wednesday. Okuda took the reins of the struggling firm in 1995

Editorial Team Legacy

Published 17 August 2026, 8:00 · Updated 21:46

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Toyota ex-chief Okuda, pioneer of the Prius, dead at 93

TDT | Tokyo

Email: mail@newsofbahrain.com

Former Toyota head Hiroshi Okuda, credited with championing the pioneering Prius hybrid and turning the Japanese automaker into a global titan, has died aged 93, the firm said Wednesday.

Okuda took the reins of the struggling firm in 1995 as the first person from outside the founding family in decades, and pushed innovative products such as the RAV4 and Prius.

At the time the viability of electric vehicles as a large market was a pipedream and the Prius was the world’s first mass-produced petrol and electric hybrid.

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