Yes, thank you. I'd like to say first that it was a short notice, but thank you so much for attending our Toyota Times live interview today, and also many connected remotely.

I appreciate this very much. Tomikawa-san first asked about what is the purpose and why we have made this decision for the executive change.

I'd like to provide my explanation. For the purpose of this organizational change, it is to enable Toyota to fully address the management changes that it is now facing, it is what we think of as a formation change.

For the various challenges that we have, the first management challenge we're facing is the need to enhance the company's earning power to support our future. Toyota, in the past 2 years, we have been working on the foundation-strengthening efforts, and from there, the environment surrounding us has pushed us to do a gear change toward improving productivity and also to create ever-better, more affordable vehicles.

We find ourselves to have shifted into this phase. That is the first management challenge and that we would also like to deal with this formation change.

Also, now the next challenge is to accelerate our industry collaboration. In order to maintain the international competitiveness for the car industry going forward, the whole industry should be united to advance concrete collaboration initiatives and identify the pathways for Japan to remain competitiveness.

In order to evolve vehicles in tandem with the social infrastructure, collaboration with partners beyond our industry is becoming key. In other words, for Toyota, more than before, the role that Toyota should play within the industry is becoming larger and more important than ever.

Against this backdrop, the executive appointment meeting of Toyota has provided a proposal, and that proposal has been a trigger to examine the optimal organization structure for Toyota in light of the current management challenges we're facing. Based on this kind of discussions and deliberations, we determined that a change in the management team's formation is necessary for the future of Toyota and also for the industry.

With that, consequently, we have held the board of directors meeting and the board approved these role changes today. Kenta Kon, he will become the president and CEO and have a focus internally and drive the initiatives to enhance our company's earning power.

That will be his role. For Kon-san, current operating officer, he possesses strong expertise in accounting and finance, and most recently, as many of he is the CFO of Woven by Toyota, and he has the perspective to look at TMC from the outside and has been leading cross-functional reforms across the organization.

We believe that in advancing the earning power initiatives, he will be able to leverage his strengths to provide the strong leadership that we will need to advance our initiatives. For myself, I will become the vice chairman and also the chief industry officer, CIO, and I will focus my efforts on the broader industry, including the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association and Keidanren, and I intend to be able to accelerate the pace of the collaboration.

I intend to be more active than ever on the ground on the front lines connecting Toyota with the industry. For Toyota and at Toyota, what we believe is that we should work based on our roles and not our titles.

This has been always the core of our communication, and since I became president, what was always on my mind is to maintain the speed of management and also to continue to take action. This is the team management philosophy that our Toyota executive team has always been valuing.

We want to contribute to revitalize further the automotive industry and also Japan, and under this new formation, we want to fully carry out our respective roles. We sincerely ask for your continued understanding and support.

Thank you.

Honestly speaking, because I'm a human being, at that moment, I actually had a lot of thinking in myself because at JAMA, there was a discussion of selection of chairman, and that discussion started in autumn, and I was discussing with many top management, and because of several reasons, they have asked that Toyota could take the lead in JAMA. This activity at JAMA and also the job of taking responsibility at Toyota, I was wondering if I could do both at the full scope.

I was actually asking myself. It is quite difficult also to speak up about this struggling point, and then there was this proposal from the executive appointment meeting.

Then I was wondering if I could serve both of those roles in this formation. I think this proposal was quite effective in terms of governance because from the third party's view, this position is quite overload, and then because of the proposal from this appointment meeting, I became very objective and started to think that this is something that I should consider.

Of course, because I've been working at genba all along, and I love cars. Of course, I always have been asking myself what the role should be to become a president, because car making is something that you can stake your life for.

Of course, a part of me really had this attachment to this,

I knew you were going to ask this question. Honestly speaking, I think it is short.

However, there are two points I have in my mind. It's still 3 years, but it's already 3 years.

When you think of the speed of the auto industry, it is not that lukewarm. In other words, the timeframe in the past is completely different with this current 3 years.

Then when I became the president, Chairman Akio, when he asked me to become president, car making in 14 years of his presidency is still not complete, and then he wanted me to work together with him to complete this work for the finale, and that was the starting point. Chairman Toyoda, at the end of January, when he asked me to take some time for discussion, he said that he wanted to serve so that he can contribute to make Japan better.

He sincerely talked about this, and that is the same Mr. Akio Toyoda, who said that we want to make Japan better.

With his words, it really accelerated my decision. Another point is that, of course, the first player would always win.

What I mean is that as a top management, I should not be the "I" in the sentence. If I become the subject, then I would not be able to make the crystal-clear solution because "I want to do this" and "I want to do that."

I didn't want to be the subject in a sentence. It's not "I," it's "we."

When you think of that, there was a selection of chairman at JAMA, and then if there are things that has to be done at this timing, although the 3 years was so short, that is not the reason for anything.

Yes, honestly speaking, some of my friends texted me and asked me if I did something bad, "What did you do?" To avoid any misunderstanding, there is no wrongdoing.

I have to be clear about this. Like I said, there was a very positive, forward-looking discussion at the company.

Please understand this, and then to all my friends, I have to tell them not to send me weird texts.

There is no wrongdoing. Nothing.

As was mentioned in the press release, it's not just the executive change in the 1st of April, but as of the shareholders meeting in June this year, there's going to be announcements, and you are going to no longer be a board member. That is correct.

There are two points to this. The first of which is that we are aware of the corporate governance code, and the way corporate governance should be is that Toyota has been making efforts to improve the management, and we want to be very much aware of that.

BOD has to be participated all board members, and then they discuss seriously about how Toyota can win. All the board members are always present at the BOD meeting, and diversity of the BOD members and numbers of board members are the important point for us to consider at TMC.

As I became the vice chairman, the general public, they are very cautious of titles, but at Toyota, that is not the case. In one sense, from the viewpoint of corporate governance, we want to stick to what Toyota believes, and that is the one reason.

Second of all, what we try to do in the future, and if I have this role of board member at Toyota, it might not always be helpful to wear that badge or hat for my future role, because at JAMA, there are very cross-industrial topics, and then in some cases, we do agree with the whole overall topic, but there are some oppositions amongst some companies. When that happens, if I'm wearing the hat of Toyota, then it could sound like peer pressure from Toyota.

I was struggling all along. I try to convince everyone to do something for industry, but if I am wearing a hat of Toyota, it remains to be seen how much understanding we can get from the peers.

I wanted to go back to scratch, and I wanted to be the person who can connect all these passions and intentions of all the companies in the industries. Otherwise, it would not be possible to do the reform that has to be done in an industry.

That is another reason.

Yes, it was in middle of January when, just like Sato-san said, there was a executive appointment meeting members that talked to me about this concept.

I am sorry for the executives, but I was so surprised, and I totally blacked out. I think I listened very well to this story, but I don't really remember what I heard at that time.

As Sato-san said, those purpose and intention of this role change was explained by the executive who were in the same meeting to inform me, but I was like, "Wow." You were very surprised.

You didn't think it would be you. Yes, that is true.

Who did you think would be? I wasn't thinking about it so much because it was only 3 years.

That is correct.

No, no. I wasn't thinking that either.

Then it's really like a big shock to you, like the world collapsed? Yes, you can say that.

Probably it was difficult for you to kind of heighten your motivation for your new role?

Yes, I think so, too.

At this point of time today, it's not that I am foreseeing many things going forward and clearly thinking what are my plans to move forward. My honest feeling is that nothing is crystal clear at this point of time.

For what Sato-san has mentioned before me, it is also new things that I've learned today as I was listening to Sato-san. Also with Chairman, Sato-san, and the other operating officers, I will continue to communicate with them and consult with them what kind of direction we should move forward after April and what will be the formation of the management team.

Now it's like Sato-san is going to be the captain of the Japan national team, but for our club team, Toyota, we will be able to look at a larger scope and cover a larger scope, and that will also be something to consider as I take on this position of captain for the club team.

Yes, I think so. As of now, I am in Woven by Toyota.

I belong to Woven by Toyota, and this organization, we have relatively younger members, and this is a software development company, we have a different culture like a agile development culture, and the way of thinking is slightly different to TMC. Another thing is that this is also something Toyota should be focused on, but what we do at Woven by Toyota is that it is a company that we thoroughly have put importance on information sharing.

The moment we talk about something, we try to go through many methods so that it will be shared with as much people as possible. Agile development requires that kind of a thorough information sharing.

That's also one thing, but also it is close in distance probably to Toyota Motor Corporation, but we still have a distance. We're not at the same spot.

I was in this company that is a little distance from TMC, and so this experience of looking at Toyota from that position outside of Toyota, a little distance from Toyota, was very valuable for me. I was able to understand things I've never understood when I was inside of TMC.

When there were things that I was impressed moving out of Toyota and seeing from the outside perspective, also things that I should change things is not really acceptable.

There's quite a lot actually what I recognized that's not a good thing. As much as you can say, if you can share some of the things you recognized on the negative side?

I think that at Toyota, people are really working very hard and with a strong mission, each and every individual is working with a strong mission, and also there's a lot of accumulation of the past experiences that we've had and the history. On the other hand, if we try to do something new, we tend to be bound by the past precedents and also the past formula, try to be in line with how the things happened in the past.

I think that's a tendency that TMC has. Of course, if we want to make improvements for the current business, it's a important perspective, but if it's a new challenge, something new that we're trying to do, we need to take a different perspective, a different approach.

That's what I thought from the outside perspective.

I agree to what he said, because I think there's many things that you can only notice when you're outside the company, outside the organization. Sometimes we may act bossy.

I think he was trying to be very polite, but our company is a company that has a strong functional organization. We have strong functional capabilities, and everyone is working very hard, and they have no ill intents.

Sometimes we're not very good in having collaboration cross-functionally. Like Kon-san has said, this Woven by Toyota is focused on agile development, and from their perspective, from that environment, probably we are more kind of working in standard way and being siloed.

Having that objective perspective and having that feeling that we need to change Toyota, that has to be very important to move us forward. Chairman Toyoda always says that since I'm from the R&D team, he says that you've always been nurtured in the ivory tower.

Kon-san will have a different perspective, and that is going to be very helpful for Toyota going forward.

For the first year that you become a president, well, my first year as president, I had tried to become up with concrete initiatives so that Toyota can transform into a mobility company, but at the at that time, we had the certification issue come out. The advice I got from Chairman Toyoda was very simple and just one word: "In these times, go to the genba, Sato."

That was what he said. Very simple and very short.

I thought that because I was always at the genba doing development as an engineer, I thought I knew about the genba, but once I followed his advice and went to the genba, I found out that I had no idea about the genba. For Toyota, in all plants, genbas, all the development genbas, everyone is working very, very hard.

There are these many, many invisible heroes at Toyota making achievements and giving out results, and I didn't know about all of these efforts in Toyota where everyone was devoting every they all that they had and thought that I knew about Toyota's genba. Then what I thought is that if I can what I if I can help to make create an environment so that they can do something everyone wants to do, that probably that's my role.

It's going to be a little emotional, but in Shimoyama, there's a test course for Toyota, and my juniors at Shimoyama said that, "Sato-san, please come and drive our car." They invite me, I'll go, and I drove car, tested cars for a full day.

The the people, the guys who's doing engaged in development development projects, they really have shining, bright eyes, and they're fully having a lot of passion about developing cars. When I became president, the message that I gave out was that I want to be a president that continues to make cars.

What I felt when I went to Shimoyama and met these young members who has these shiny eyes and enjoying and having so much passion for developing cars, I thought that I what I want to do is to create that environment so that these these people, these employees will be able to do fully on what they want to do. When I think about helping others as an engineer, it's not for me to go in as one engineer and work together.

I think my role is to create a a environment for them to be able to do what they want to do. Toyota, we're in this new position that we can't just think about ourselves.

We have to think about the whole industry, about the country, the economic situation, the trade situation. All of this is all intertwined with what Toyota is doing.

Thinking about that, at the beginning of this year, Chairman Toyoda did the calligraphy, the new New Year calligraphy, and he wrote the word "ba," which that kanji character "ba," which means "space." I thought that that "ba" or this space of Toyota is expanding and is changing, and I it was a trigger for me to think about what is the "ba" that I should be in, and that connected into the decision that I made for this executive change.

You saw that those he's and she's that were devoted in and making cars and very passionate, you thought that you should be able to help them and create that "ba," create that space for them to excel.

I also do love cars, but right now I'm in charge of finance and accounting, and so I always think about money and creating a financial foundation so that we can make good cars and also profit. The money and profit and numbers is what I'm focused on.

Yes, I guess I'll say that I'm a guy who loves numbers. I'm a guy that loves money.

Even if you say money, it's not that you want to keep that money for yourself.

Yes, that's what I think. I'm not that greedy type that I think.

This time when I heard about this appointment proposal from the executive appointment meeting people, I met with Chairman Toyoda, and he mentioned the name of Taizo Ishida. He was the big treasury keeper, the safe keeper of Kiichiro.

Yes, he was the great banto or the consigliere in a certain sense to Kiichiro Toyoda. Taizo Ishida, he was a person who was very much fixed on the financials, and he would not use any wasteful penny.

However, for the dreams that Kiichiro had, he would make courageous and bold decisions and make those big investments for Kiichiro's dream. At Toyota, I believe that kind of way of thinking about money has not changed at Toyota.

I did say that I like and love money, but what I'm thinking of when I say I like money is I want to use money for the future of Toyota, and also that money at Toyota is not something that we generated only by Toyota. We should use that money that we have for others as well, for others in the industry, others in the country, and we are in a strong position to be able to do that to use money for others.

That kind of a profit structure, that kind of a financial situation is something that we should always have attention on. I believe that is why Chairman Toyoda has raised the name of Taizo Ishida, and I want to make my efforts in that way, too.

I think both, because each unit of cars, especially, we are asking customers to wait for delivery of cars that they've ordered, and there are so many customers of such, and there are some constraints to production. Therefore, we want as many cars to be produced as possible and then deliver them to customers as fast as possible, and that is an important mission for us.

On the other hand, as you mentioned, Tomikawa-san, quality. When it comes to Toyota's revenue, we don't have any numerical target for our revenue, but no matter how the environment is harsh, we want to be a company who can incur revenue, and we don't stop our business.

We don't have to give up on some things to come up with revenues. I think that is the revenue stream and the structure that our stakeholders are requesting for, and in order to maintain that, we want to reduce the break-even volume point.

In other words, even in a bad time, we want to hang in. That is the kind of structure that we want to create as a company.

Yes, unless we have an earning power, we cannot do what we want to do, earning power is important in order for us to achieve what we should do.

Minivans?

No, no, it's okay.

Yes, as I mentioned a little bit before, in January, I did discuss with Chairman Toyoda, and we were saying that when we trying to make Japan better, we do want to serve some roles. It's very simple thing, but the scope that he's thinking and the Chairman's passion was so simple, and that was a strong message to me.

In other words, he won't talk about details of the formation change. You might think that he will give you detailed instruction, but not at all.

It's much fewer than before, but rather he will give you this mainstream because we want to be instrumental in making Japan better.

Like I said, no, he's not involved. I'm sure he has opinions, but he was not involved in decision making.

At Toyota, we have the executive appointment meeting, and the members of this meeting will discuss voluntarily. They have the authority to discuss and decide on this HR formation.

We have been reviewing this company structure, and then we became a company to have the committee and with the auditors. Then now we have members for this executive appointment meeting, and that's where we start our activities from.

From that timing, we started discussion of the to-be picture, for example, in risk management, when there is something wrong with the existing CEO, how do we maintain the business, and what should be the preparation that we have for successors. That discussion started back then, and on this role change, when the decision was made at the end of last year that I would become the chairman of JAMA, and at that time, we started to discuss the details of this formation change.

Then they got me involved in discussion, and I made this decision. Ultimately, we all decided at BOD that we are going to propose this to the general shareholders meeting.

As Kon-san was saying, what is Akio-san's impression? As Kon-san was saying, that in each timing, there is an appropriate formation, and that kind of flexible management is always called for.

From the viewpoint of Chairman Toyoda, I think he is 69 years old, and he's going to turn 70 this year. As he continues as the chairman from now on, he says that there are three points that he want to focus on, and one of them is HR development.

Under his leadership, learn the execution of management, and so that we can have a more rich pool of human resource who are involved in the management, and that's going to be quite important. This formation change will make Toyota stronger, and if Toyota can continue to be strong, then that would be instrumental in making the industry stronger.

That is a kind of thinking I think he has at the backdrop of this HR change.

I'm Nikkei Cross Tech. Takatsugu Tsuchioka is my name.

I want to ask about the direction of engineering development, and if it is irrelevant, I'm sorry, but the end-to-end autonomous driving technology, Tesla and the Chinese players have been accelerating their development effort. For this kind of a trend at Toyota, what is the current situation of the capabilities, and what will be your future policy to promote the development?

I want to understand how Kon-san views this topic.

Thank you very much for your question. Regarding autonomous driving, if I can expand the scope, it will be including Toyota's SDVs.

Why is Toyota engaged in developing SDVs? When we think about this question, a little while ago, actually, there was a core direction that Chairman Toyoda showed to us, and that was the target to achieve zero traffic accidents.

It's not going to be a easy path to achieve that, but I believe that we are steadily moving along this path toward the target. For companies like Tesla and other companies, they have been quite quick on working on AI-based, ML-based type of autonomous system.

There are early entrants in this area, and if the question is, is Toyota advanced in their level, that's not true, and there are many things that we can learn from these early players. For Toyota, we have this 10 million of sales annually and also the 150 million UIOs.

It means that there is a huge source of data that we can rely on, and therefore, we will be able to have good speed in catching up. I think that will be a way to exert our strength.

Also, there are the TSS, for example. That is something easy for the customers to accept and that can secure the safety for customers.

Those will be something that will be quite close to customers, and then there will be the systems more for the future, a complete autonomous system. We're working on all these ends.

Kon-san, the reason why you were selected as the president, is it because there is a intention of Toyota to accelerate the technology development, including the autonomous driving system developments? Is there that kind of meaning behind your selection?

If you can comprehend in that way, I will be grateful if you interpret in that way. For me, my understanding is that my main role is that for those kinds of technical development, for those who will be leading those efforts, it will be other engineering members.

There's many engineers, talented engineers in our company. The leaders, we have those leaders.

For my part, my role is to create a good environment so that we can invest in those areas and also create an environment so that those engineers can try many options, not just to limit ourselves on one path, but to create environment where we are able to test the various options and to be in a state where we can be durable in that kind of situation, too, meaning that we have a good profit structure. Establishing this good profit structure, this foundation so that people can take courageous challenges will be my role.

This is Taruno from NHK. I have a question to Kon-san.

At the background of this presidency change, you talked about how you want to improve the break-even volume, and then at Toyota, in the past 10 years, this number has been improving, I think. What kind of challenges and issues do you have, and as a president, how are you going to lead the solution for this problem or for this challenge?

We recognize the challenge, and we've made announcement of the fiscal numbers, and then break-even numbers in past 1 or 2 years have been increasing a little. There are some external reasons, and also the price level is another factor.

No matter how bad it becomes, no matter how tough the environment, we want to have a structure in place so that we can hang in there. That is something that we are all aware.

There are many factors, like Sato-san said, the functional axis, without having the overall picture, if we accumulate, I think we were too conscious of the benefits of each function rather than having a big picture. In that sense, we want to have more cross-functional awareness, and I think people are more conscious of this more than before.

As we made the interim report, we have this theme of intentional pause, and Sato-san also talked about it. We want to have more of a company-wide approach for this.

I'm Nagai from TV Tokyo. I have a question to President Sato.

Earlier, you've mentioned that it was a short 3 years, but in the past 3 years as president, what were the things that you were able to accomplish? On the other hand, in this short term of 3 years, probably were things that you were not able to accomplish and probably there's things that you want to succeed to Kon-san.

Can you talk a little bit about those?

Thank you for your question. I don't think that there are any things that I need to do on a personal level.

Like I said, the subject should not be "I," but I should always be thinking from a "we" perspective. We are now targeting to transform into a mobility company, and at the beginning, at the starting line, we did say that we want to become a mobility company, but what to do was very unclear.

That was our starting line, and that was the starting line for the new management team. In the past 3 years, we've tried to first take action.

That was the consciousness that we had, and my feeling is that because we continue to take action, little by little, those concrete measures that we need to do, the initiatives, has becoming more clear. When we know what kind of action we need to take more clearer, then we know the challenges, and then if we know the challenges, we're able to make the changes necessary to overcome those challenges.

I guess this initial torque to start and move toward a mobility company was probably ignited by the efforts in the past 3 years. Then what will I want to succeed and pass on to Kon-san for him to continue on?

It will be all summarized in this word: "Let's make ever-better cars." Taking this word and thinking about it with the whole company and seriously considering how we can achieve that, because at the end, we're a car company, meaning that we have to have products that are attractive so that our customers would want to select our products.

That is the center of our business. Currently, Toyota vehicles are being chosen and are being loved, and it is because of the past efforts.

It's not the efforts of the 1, 2 years that have paid off, because if you think about the car business lead time, the cars that you see in the market, it's those models that I was working as an engineer in the company 10 years ago. Those are finally bearing fruit right now in the market.

If we want to think 10 years in the future from here, then we want to make our efforts and sow the seeds now so that a decade later, people will say that Toyota has ever-better cars. That means that Toyota's most important part that we continue to pursue ever-better cars and sow the seeds for the future is very important.

I don't have to say this to Kon-san because I think he is well aware of this point, and he'll continue on.

My name is Fukui from Nikkan Jidosha Shimbun. I have a question to Kon-san.

Under presidency of Sato, I think the team management and also evolution and inheritance was the theme. I do understand that some of the things are not too clear yet, but because of your financial background, including the next management structure, what will be your management policy that you want to focus on?

Team management is something that you mentioned, and this will stay the same.

Executive members, we have the presidents and divisional or chief officers, and all these executive members there at Toyota, we don't have one superman. We are working to make Toyota and Japan better all together, and that kind of style is going to stay the same.

As Sato-san just said, making ever-better cars, that theme or the mission will stay also the same. There's no person at Toyota who will not be involved in this mission.

We will all work together, thinking hard how we can make ever-better cars and how we can transform into a mobility company, how can we provide better mobility to society. We would all think together, and then each one of us take action respectively.

I think that is the gist of our team management, and we will stick to that.

I'm Sato from TV Asahi. Thank you for the opportunity.

It was suddenly decided to hold this press conference and you had no initial plan, but what is the reason why at the last minute you decided to hold this kind of a conference setting?

We need to do a timely disclosure regarding this content that we have decided, and today this matter has been resolved at our BOD meeting. Therefore, immediately after this resolution has made today, the timely disclosure was made, and therefore, we created this opportunity to provide an explanation from ourselves.

I think that just by issuing a press release, there'll be thoughts of us and the background behind this decision that will not be understood fully, and we wanted to have an opportunity to convey our thoughts as well. That is why we use the setting of Toyota Times to hold this kind of opportunity.

Also, apart from just having a one-sided communication, we wanted to put importance on a open-style communication. That is how we came up with the setup.

Thank you.

Chunichi Shimbun, my name is Atsumi. You talked about HR development is one of the most important point for Toyota, and I have a question to both of you.

Recently, I think you have been working to recover the uniqueness of Toyota. You want to I think continue this Toyota uniqueness so that it would not become like regular company.

What's your impression on this theme, for Sato-san looking back to your tenure, and also Kon-san for your presidency from April 1st onwards?

I will not pretend that I know everything, because this is a question that I've been asking myself all along. I've always asked what the unique point about Toyota.

I don't have the correct answer. For someone other than myself or for the smiles of customers, as long as we have such colleagues at Toyota, I think it is important to have that kind of thinking at Toyota, and we have a Toyota Precepts, and then we have this thinking of always be faithful to your duties and thereby contribute to the company and to overall good.

That means we have to execute and then contribute to society, and that is how we can have a meaning in our work. That is always in my mind, and that should be in our mind to look back to what you're doing, because when you are trying very hard, subject of the sentence tends to become yourself, and you'll become self-centered, but that will narrow down your perspective, and then you might digress from what Toyota should do, and I interpret that as to be a warning.

I quite agree with what Sato-san said. For someone other than myself, that's how we started, and that is the weaving machine at the Toyoda Loom that we started to work at the Toyoda.

This passion at the founding time has to be executed. I don't have any correct answer.

I think that is one of the big theme. Another point which was also mentioned before is that so Chairman use the word "ba" or "place" or "space," and I think this is also correct.

A genba and uriba or the sales front, we have to keep the focus on those words, or places, and outside of those ba, outside of those places, we don't make decisions or prioritize things. Anything that happens at those places or ba, we have to pay attention and take actions.

I think that's the uniqueness of Toyota. That is what I think right now, and that's the mission I was given.

I will try to create such ba for everyone else. That's the focus for me.

Thank you. Then

I'm Yao from Nikkei Newspapers, and I also want to ask Kon-san a question. Most recently, for the TOB of [unclear] project is being continuing, and you are Toyota Fudosan board member as well, and now you're going to become a representative director of TMC.

For this point, would there be any concerns of the conflict of interest, and also going forward, for Toyota Fudosan's board member position, what is going to be done? Is there going to be a change in your role?

That would be my question.

For [unclear]'s TOB, I have not participated in any of the decision making at Toyota Motor Corporation, and there is an information blockade between TMC and myself. As a offeror, as an acquirer from Toyota Fudosan, I am participating in this transaction.

Even with this role change this time that we announced today, we are going to have good management of the conflict of the interest for this [unclear] transaction, and this will not change. Therefore, in the position of Toyota Fudosan, we are now in the period of TOB as an offeror, and for this transaction, I will continue to be participating from the board member position of Toyota Fudosan.

Thank you.

Can I ask a question about the idea of maybe changing the focus of the top management at Toyota? We might think of Sato-san as a car guy, engineer focused on ever-better cars, and we might think of Kon-san as a money, numbers person focused on future profits.

What does this change of leadership say about the focus of Toyota's priorities for this new world of the automotive industry with all the change coming in from China, from autonomous driving, from software, and AI? Is fun to drive being, I guess, maybe taking a back seat to things like profitability, numbers, and the need for new kinds of technologies?

I think I will start to respond to your question first.

For the ever-better car making and also the contribution to the industry, happiness for all, and for these kinds of purposes and targets that Toyota has, even though the leadership and formation will change, those will not change. I think rather it will be that those purposes and targets will be further strongly be promoted.

I think it's a formation that we will be able to enhance the efforts to achieve those purposes. I did say that I'm a person that will be focused on money and numbers, but that means that that vision that we have, the target, purpose that we have, Toyota will be able to fully focus on those purposes.

It doesn't mean that we just focus on a narrow-minded money side. We don't assess things just by money or numbers.

That's not what I meant. It's about being prepared for the creating the future so that the money can be invested for the future for our stakeholders.

The way we use money should be something that we feel the warmth of humans, the body temperature of humans. That is how I want to handle the money at Toyota with the human warmth, and that is how I've thought of money from the past, and that will not change going to the future.

Thank you very much, Hans-san, and I'd also like to add a little bit of comment myself, too. For me, I think it's the opposite of you said.

I think the focus of fun to drive is going to be more and more enhanced. The reason why I say that is because, for example, if it is myself and if you think about the many engineers, when we think about fun to drive from our perspective, we think fun to drive is more kind of equivalent to engineering.

Like what Kon-san has said earlier, fun to drive and ever-better car making, there will not be anyone who is unrelated to fun to drive and ever-better car making at Toyota. I think that was a very important point from Kon-san, because from many angles, there'll be many ways on people to get involved in making ever-better cars.

If Kon-san is the leader, there will be more people that will be looking the same direction. Maybe some people will have thinking that if you're in accounting and finance, HR division, all of these works are always definitely been related to the ever-better car making, and that is what the communication message will be from a leader like Kon-san.

I think that will light the passion inside of many, many people outside of the engineer community. I think that our endeavor for ever-better car making and fun to drive will be even more boosted.

That's how I feel.

Hi, this is Tanigawa from Car Watch. Can you hear me?

I think you're going to be more focused on the Keidanren and also JAMA's role, but the issue here is tariff and regional assets, and I'm sure there are many challenges. What is the first point that you are going to start and more focused on?

If you know your focus, please let us know. Another question is that in middle of January, you were informed about it, and in the beginning of January, you mentioned that you want to be a referee in between Akio Toyoda and Mr.

Nakajima, but who is going to take this role now? Do you want me to show the video of this referee, and we can start from there?

Let's start from the second question. GR members made this, but it's processed with AI, and I look like such an evil person.

Kon-san is going to do this. Please, would you?

We changed the facial expression. I like this better.

It is not to show that we have a conflict inside TMC. This passion of making ever-better cars, I think, is multi-directional.

We're not fixing the approach of making cars to one. Each one has its own passion, and that's what's being shown here.

Sato trying to create this environment, I am actually watching this conflict with happiness, with fun.

I like this, and I hope that we can change this person to Kon-san and then distribute this.

as chairman of JAMA and also vice president of Keidanren, what will be your first thing to start, and what is the biggest challenge that you think is in front of you?

Thank you for that question. Yes, in case of JAMA, there are seven challenges that's in front of us, and how seriously can we tackle this?

When they selected the chairman, we had a huge discussion with the top management of the member companies, and then I think we have a common understanding. Unless we go through the changes in the industry, then this auto industry that Japan has always been cherished as the critical industry will no longer serve its role.

Then the sense of crisis actually is common. Those competition amongst the companies in the industry, we have to look at it from the big picture and then take specific actions.

That is the kind of determination we have to have, and I think that's the consensus. I'm not going to mention specific names, but Toyota and Honda, it is not the time to do things differently amongst two OEMs.

I shouldn't just mention Honda. I should just mention all the OEMs, Mazda and Nissan.

That's my understanding. Seven challenges.

The social implementation is the goal, and then we are going to come up with the team to execute them. How to implement them, and what are the choke points if it's not implemented, what kind of things that we need to overcome to tackle them, we will be very specific.

Unlike before where we had this regular meeting and discussion and then set direction, unless we take actions, we won't be able to draw this blueprint. My work, I think, is to draw a specific picture.

Thank you.

I think so. If you you need to be careful.

Taizo Ishida was a person that will not waste money, but use where it's important. I guess that's going to be a policy.

I understand that this car has strong expectations. I am the generation who enjoyed watching the movie Take Me to Skiing, and there the Celica GT-Four, GR-Four, that came out has always been a model that I admired.

I'm in that generation. Sato-san, Nakajima-san doesn't really say this a real thing like we're going to do or we're going to stop.

They never let me know the true situation, I assume that development is progressing. That's my assumption for now.

I have to confess I don't know the details about this development project. I guess these kinds of ever-better car making will continue.

Right, when a good car and ever-better car is being developed, it's not about responding to the instructions from a company and be given a specific instructions. We don't develop ever-better cars in that way.

It's about passion. As long as there is passion and that fire of passion in this company, I don't think we have to be worried.

In today's press conference, I hope that I was able to show the real atmosphere or the real kind of relations that we have at Toyota. At Toyota, the management team, even if we change the formation, we are a company that can continue to be steadily grounded on our core and focused on our core.

This is the kind of company that we are now, and I hope that you will continue to have high expectations to us and will make our full effort to be able to respond to your expectations. We're okay.

Kon-san, please listen to the employee's voice. Is Toyota okay going forward?

Yes, we are okay. From another perspective, I would like to have stakeholders be confident to say that Toyota is okay.

It doesn't have to be now, but even if it's a little while later, I would want to make my efforts so that all stakeholders will say that Toyota is okay.

Should we have some kind of a pose? We can have that sunglasses again and do a fighting pose.

Kon-san, are you a little nervous? You look nervous.

It kind of showing that you're not used to this kind of a setting. It's quite visible.

Please continue to look at the front.

Kon-san, you look a little tired now. You have to hang in there.

Smile, please. I think Akio-san is very good in making a constant smile.

No, the fighting pose,

no, that's going to be a company feud, so that was Tokyo Auto Salon. It's not for here.

Maybe a fist in the air? It's like yes, both of us are going to make our efforts, so.

Adjust the pose a bit.

Maybe should we re-handshake?

Guess we're okay. Maybe do that little pose that you practiced earlier,

go off stage.

Thank you very much,