Akio Toyoda, grandson of the company’s founder and chairman of its board, has had quite a week. He flipped a Toyota Yaris rally car on a gravel race track. But that might have been on purpose. He also was reelected as the chairman of the board, which sounds great. But his once 96% approval rating has plummeted to 72%. Why? Toyota has had a difficult year, caught for dodging regulators in both emissions and crash tests.

Akio Toyoda (born 1956) is the grandson of Kiichiro Toyoda who founded the automaker. Akio earned an MBA from Babson College in Massachusetts. By the mid-2000s he was the company’s Vice President, and next in line to take it over. But during an argument with Toyota’s “master test driver”–Hiromu Naruse–the racing driver told Akio that no one without track experience had any business running a car company.

Most folks going through a midlife crisis might settle for a convertible, or maybe a couple of autocross events. But most folks aren’t the heir to Toyota. Akio Toyoda began intensive racing driver lessons under the tutelage of Hiromu Naruse. By the time he had earned the same certification all the company’s test drivers have, he was hooked.

With his newfound appreciation of sports cars, Toyoda realized his company had cancelled the Supra and had no RWD sports car to replace it. He went to the board and requested to head a factory race team that could develop a competitive sports car and prove it at the 24 Hours of Nürburing in Germany. The board said no.

Not to be dissuaded, Toyoda and Naruse flew to Germany and bought a pair of Lexus IS cars (called Altezzas in Germany). They and the Toyota test drivers prepped the two race cars and entered the 2007 race. Toyoda drove under the name Morizo Kinoshita. Instead of Toyota Factory Works, the cars wore “Gazoo Racing” livery.

Gazoo Racing became so successful, the board made it the factory works team, and Akio the company’s president. He helped develop the Lexus LFA, the GR 86, and eventually reincarnate the Supra. Today, Toyota is a brand known by sports car enthusiasts. But that’s not enough for Akio.

In June 2024, Toyoda opened a 1,600 acre R&D facility near Toyota City. It has a track inspired by the Nürburing and a rally course. He urged the test drivers to push the cars, adopting the motto: “Drive, break, fix.” And on opening day, a smashed Yaris was parked by the podium, flipped by Akio Toyoda and displayed as an example.

While Akio Toyoda–now graduated from president to chairman of the board–focuses on pushing his automaker to develop better sports cars, the corporation is having a tough year. Toyota and its brands–including Daihatus–were raided by Japanese authorities over an emissions testing defeat scandal. The company also was investigated for lying about its in-house crash tests, going so far as resubmitting results from previous years’ tests and making up its own testing rules.

Overall, Toyota’s year has been profitable. While these investigations caused a 9% drop in share prices, they are still up 20% year-to-date. The automaker’s once-controversial strategy of focusing on new hybrids instead of going all-in on EVs is keeping it out of the red as EV sales slump. Even so, Akio Toyoda’s approval ratings among shareholders are falling. He had a comfortable 96% in 2022, slid to 85% in 2023, and fell to 72% when he was reelected as chairman this year.

Next, learn about the three models Toyota stopped selling after crash test scandal, or watch Akio Toyoda flip the Yaris rally car in the video below: