About Toyota Material Handling’s European Design Studio
Logistics is a huge and growing global business, where the challenge is finding the best way of moving things, at the lowest cost to businesses and the environment. The requirements vary from one business area to the next. What will work for the medical field may not be appropriate for the car industry nor for airports, for instance. The needs for specialized solutions keep growing.
The Studio is built around a team of dedicated professionals, who have the creative wherewithal to come up with the right designs for the right business areas. These designs are obviously not only about aesthetics, but are firmly rooted in function. The products and services we deliver must do the job. But they also have to look right, and be right for the user. Our survival and success in the logistics industry demands we find the most talented, the most forward-thinking designers in the business. That’s why we launched the Toyota Logistic Design Competition (TLDC) back in 2014.
Since the Studio was set up in 2006, it has won more than 20 international design awards, including Red Dot’s ‘Best of the Best’, iF Design Award’s ‘Gold’, and Good Design’s ‘Long Life Design’. Our main facility is located in Mjölby, Sweden, which is also where the Toyota Material Handling Europe’s headquarters and main factory are located. We’ve recently launched a satellite studio in Bologna, Italy.
About Toyota Europe Design Development – ED²
European design centre, ED², is located near Nice on the French Côte d’Azur and is one of the eight design studios that Toyota Motor Corporation has around the world. Toyota Europe Design Development (ED²) opened in 2000 and is responsible for many different aspects of design development, including vehicle exterior design, interior design, Colour, Material and Finishing (CMF), the production of models and design research.
The studio has contributed to many notable production cars, including the original first-generation Yaris, the Verso, the Avensis, the Toyota C-HR crossover, the fourth-generation Yaris (COTY’s 2021 Car of the year winner), and the Yaris Cross. It has also created a number of Concept cars, such as the Lexus LF-SA, the Lexus UX Concept, the mobility concepts shown at the Tokyo Motor Show in 2019, the LF-30 Electrified and the Aygo X Prologue.
Together with the Mjölby Design Studio, in Sweden, we jointly wanted to marry the automotive and logistics worlds. Our ambition is to rethink and question the mobility of goods, services and people in a holistic and systemic way. We want to optimise the flows of goods generated by our societies in a sustainable and ethical way, in order to achieve synchronized and seamless mobility.
Everyone should have the freedom to move. With cities more congested and lives more connected, we need a new way to travel from A to B. One solution that’s convenient, flexible, simple to use and kind to the environment whenever you need to move, wherever you are. That's KINTO.
KINTO Europe GbmH, based in Cologne, started as a joint venture between Toyota Motor Europe (TME) and Toyota Financial Services Corporation (TFSC). KINTO manages a wide range of mobility services across Europe and we are the driving force behind Toyota’s global vision to evolve into a mobility company. In the future, we want every journey you take to feel intuitive and consistent, whatever way you choose to move. KINTO offers a seamless experience of different modes of transport, from full-service leasing to station based car-sharing, to meet all mobility needs and abilities.
About Toyota Group
Since its foundation, through innovation and passion, Toyota has challenged what was considered impossible and realised countless dreams.
Toyota’s history began with Sakichi Toyoda, a man with a strong desire to contribute to society. He wanted to make things easier for loom workers including his own mother. Shortly after creating the "Type G Automatic Loom", regarded as the world's best at the time, Sakichi founded Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Ltd. (now Toyota Industries Corporation) in 1926. Toyota Motor Corporation was born in 1937 as Sakichi’s eldest son, Kiichiro reinvented the company as a car manufacturer.
Today, the Toyota Group comprises 16 companies working in a variety of areas in and beyond automobile manufacturing, including housing, financial services, communications, marine and biotechnology, and afforestation.
Sakichi´s founding spirit lives on in the guiding principle, Toyota Way 2020:
Act for Others
Work with Integrity
Drive Curiosity
Observe Thoroughly
Get Better and BetterContinue the Quest for Improvement
Create Room to Grow
Welcome Competition
Show Respect for People
Thank People