Toyota May Not Own Subaru, But It Does Have A Big Stake

We live in an era where a few companies own a significant number of the world's most recognizable car brands. A company like Stellantis owns brands including Dodge, Jeep, Chrysler, Ram Trucks, Fiat, and others. Those are just the brands easily accessible in the United States, as Stellantis also owns brands such as Citroën and Opel that have a minimal footprint stateside. Not all motor companies have their arms quite as wide, though. For instance, take Toyota. When it comes to the brands known in the United States, the Japanese automaker only owns the Toyota namesake brand and the luxury brand Lexus. While those may be the only two it directly owns, that is not to say that it doesn't have a stake in other companies as well. One of those is the Japanese company Subaru.

This relationship between Toyota and Subaru dates back to 2005, when Toyota acquired an 8.7% stake in Fuji Heavy Industries, Subaru's parent company. This was a stake previously owned by General Motors. That percentage would grow over the years, and in 2019, Toyota increased its stake to a full 20% of voting rights in Subaru, which is where it remains to this day. This allows Subaru to continue operating as its own independent company, while giving Toyota some level of input. While the financial implications for both companies of this deal are, of course, crucial, as is the case with any business deal, what makes Toyota's investment in Subaru particularly crucial is how the two companies collaborate on manufacturing and designing vehicles that they can both sell.

Rebadging a vehicle is a fairly common practice among car companies. This occurs when one car company develops and produces a vehicle, and then another company can apply its own logo to it, selling it as a separate vehicle. There are many vehicles you may not have even realized were rebadged. One of the more unique instances of rebadging is when two car companies actually develop a vehicle in total partnership with one another, and that is precisely what Toyota and Subaru have done. For the 2013 model year, Subaru released the sports car, the BRZ. This was the exact same car as the 2013 Toyota 86, known as the Toyota GR86 since the 2022 model year. Both cars are manufactured at Subaru's Gunma Main Plant in Ota, Japan.

The product relationship between Toyota and Subaru doesn't stop there either. Another prominent rebadging between the two companies is quite new, starting with the 2023 model year. This was when Toyota debuted the Toyota bZ4x crossover SUV (now known simply as the bZ), and Subaru released its own version called the Subaru Solterra. This is the result of the announcement made in 2019 that the two companies were developing new electric vehicles, particularly mid-size and full-size SUVs. The first EV partnership from this was actually for the 2019 Subaru Crosstrek, which adopted Toyota's plug-in hybrid system. The Toyota bZ and Subaru Solterra, however, were like the GR86 and BRZ in that they were designed to be sister vehicles. This is obviously just the beginning of what the EV departments of Toyota and Subaru can create with this partnership.