Yamaha Motor Co., Ltd.

=== Days Gone By===   Together with Outboards – 11. Fruits of the Joint Venture  <continued>    Yamaha was the first manufacturer in the outboard motor industry to offer two application-specific model lineups. This meant that Yamaha had double the number of models of other manufacturers, but our products had clearly defined characters and the greater number of models also boosted our overall production volume. Luckily, the Japanese economy was also in the middle of its boom years and this further bolstered the results of this policy, which is in place to this day regarding outboard product development.    After seven or eight years, OMC followed in Yamaha’s footsteps and began to produce commercial-use models. We learned a lot from the joint venture and there were a lot of difficulties we faced in entering the world’s leading outboard market, but on the other hand, the increased exports to developing markets and Mercury selling outboards built by Sanshin Industries under the Mariner brand resulted in yearly production at Sanshin reaching almost 200,000 units.    Photo: Total production of Yamaha outboard motors reached the one million mark in 1978 and Yamaha underlined the achievement at the 17th Tokyo International Boat Show that year.    <ends>     #Yamaha #RevsyourHeart #marine #outboards #outboardmotors #manufacturing #engineering #history #design 

===What the Japanese Bayberry Trees Have Seen===   36. After the Mt. Fuji Ascent Race  <continued>    As our product somehow managed to make its way to storefronts and the number of them in use increased, so too did the warranty claims and requests for improvements. This was particularly true in the area of heat treatment. At the time, we didn’t have the gas carburizing method like today and instead used solid carbonizing and liquid carbonizing. Our heat-treatment equipment wasn’t exactly cutting-edge either, and this made it difficult to attain ideal levels of hardness and strength. This was one technical area we were particularly lagging behind with.    Carburizing nickel-chromimum-molybdenum steel in particular required a very high level of precision, and I can clearly recall Harada-san and Group Leader Atsumi (they have both passed away) struggling with this problem through repeated trial and error.  There’s a “story” about the production manager rushing around to haul off a small batch of parts that they’d finally managed to produce with the desired hardness to the next step in the production process. That story is from around this time.    The piston was made of “Lo-Ex” aluminum alloy and we had tremendous problems with piston seizures that spawned some serious complaints, and the seizures also led to customers calling about gearshift levers breaking and shifter springs snapping. But these issues are too technical for our present discussion so I’ll leave them out.    In any event, a research department was formed with a secret workroom set up at Nippon Gakki in Nakazawa, and things proceeded there with great intensity. The room was located in the warehouse that now sits next to the office building at Nippon Gakki headquarters today. It was called the Hachiman Warehouse and had only a few small windows, making it a rather unpleasant place. But because it was completely cut off from the outside world, it was an ideal location to keep secret research and things of that nature away from prying eyes.    It was here that R&D started on how to improve the performance of our racing engines. The small three-man team consisted of Research Department Manager Ono, Naito-san and Ishikawa-san.    Photo: The warehouse housing the secret R&D center at the time    <continues>     #Yamaha #RevsyourHeart #motorcycles #racing #manufacturing #engineering #history #design 

=== Giving Back to the Environment === Can We Create a Drink That Revitalizes Both People and Nature? To meet the demands of timber during the post-war reconstruction, the Japanese government planted significant cedar and cypress plantations across Japan’s mountainous areas. However, their overgrowth (with declining demand for timber) has led to dense forests where sunlight struggles to reach the ground. In these neglected forests, smaller plants are unable to grow, which are vital to holding the topsoil in place during heavy rain. And without them, devastating landslides occur—an issue that has been recurring in Japan. That’s why Yamaha Motor has begun developing a beverage using kuromoji, a native shrub in Shizuoka, where our story takes place. Using the mountain’s resources, we aim to generate revenue for forest management, which helps build healthier ecosystems and ultimately safer communities. Our vision for a regenerative future goes beyond the world of motors—and we hope you can be a part of it!

Some big news for race fans today! ⬇️

Yamaha Motor will be participating for the first time in the 9th Sustainable Brands International Conference 2025 Tokyo Marunouchi that kicks off today at the Tokyo International Forum.     Sustainable Brands holds community-driven events in various locations worldwide, bringing together sustainability leaders from around the world. These conferences are among the longest-running gatherings dedicated to discussing sustainability and growing professional networks. In addition to putting up a booth throughout the event, Executive Officer Jim Aota, who leads Yamaha Motor's sustainability initiatives as Chief General Manager of the Corporate Strategy Center, will deliver a speech for a plenary session tomorrow titled "Sustainability Journey: Connecting Yamaha Motor's History and Future." The Company also plans to host a luncheon and participate in panel discussions with other companies.     Our booth will showcase the YA-1—Yamaha Motor's first-ever motorcycle—and the P-3 outboard motor, which played a key role in driving the company's expansion overseas, as well as have electric wheelchairs available for test rides adorned with original accessories designed by artists from HERALBONY.    #Yamaha #RevsyourHeart #sustainability #conference #branding #electric #wheelchairs #history #future 

=== Days Gone By===   Together with Outboards – 11. Fruits of the Joint Venture    Reflecting on the results of the joint venture, Brunswick expanded their lineup of small outboards, began selling them under the Mariner brand, and did very well on the market. Brunswick had established the two-brand sales network they wanted, so they’d achieved their original goal. For Yamaha and Sanshin, we’d acquired some technologies—though only a modest amount—along the way.    However, in retrospect, I think what we most gained from the joint venture was an actual feel for the scale and workings of one of the world’s leading outboard motor companies. I feel it’s thanks to this that we were able to establish concrete goals for ourselves. We recognized anew how important it was to clearly define the goals we wanted to strive for.    Yamaha’s products following the joint venture began taking on a much stronger recreational focus with the U.S. market in mind. Compared to our earlier engines designed for fishing and commercial use, recreational engines needed to be lightweight and compact, and there are natural limits that come into play when trying to build a single engine with performance suitable for both commercial and recreational applications. But if we were to ignore that and build an outboard for any and every purpose, the result would likely be a confusing plethora of models. After much thought, we decided to try and keep our offerings as orderly as possible and opted to build a two-prong product lineup: one recreational and one commercial. The amount of work this entailed was huge, but we threw everything into getting it done.    Photo: Yamaha Motor’s outboard motor lineup in 1981    <continues>     #Yamaha #RevsyourHeart #marine #outboards #outboardmotors #manufacturing #engineering #history #design 

===What the Japanese Bayberry Trees Have Seen===   36. After the Mt. Fuji Ascent Race    It wasn’t until August that production finally began going smoothly and we successfully shipped out 350 machines. This figure quieted the persistent requests from marketing for more inventory.    However, the YA-1’s high cash price of 138,000 yen and only a modest profit margin meant there weren’t that many dealers on board with us and the hurdles for convincing others to handle the bike were quite high, so the sales team was working just as hard as the factory to sell our bike.    Even though Yamaha was a known and respected brand name for musical instruments, it was still virtually unknown as a motorcycle manufacturer. To convince customers rightly doubting that a musical instrument maker could actually build good motorcycles, our victory at Fuji was our only real attention-grabber, and with a firm resolve that a Yamaha-brand bike could win any customer’s praise, the sales team continued working to win people over and to boost our potential market.    Photo: YA-1s on display at Korakuen in Tokyo in 1955    <continues>     #Yamaha #RevsyourHeart #motorcycles #racing #manufacturing #engineering #history #design 

Over the decades, Yamaha Motor has released several all-electric scooters, from the Passol in 2002 to the NEO’s in 2022. We also developed the E01 model, which is equivalent to a 125cc scooter, and have been running real-world trials to gather data and opinions from the market.    But we have also been busy behind the scenes on a new endeavor to create eco-conscious mobility that retains the sporty and fun factor we value at Yamaha: a series parallel hybrid powertrain for mid-size scooters.    Head here to read more on this exciting new development: https://lnkd.in/gKWPYdYe     #Yamaha #RevsyourHeart #electric #EV #sustainability #eco #future #mobility #carbonneutrality #hybrid #seriesparallel #powertrain 

On the evening of February 26, this page reached 100,000 followers! We wanted to show our thanks to everyone for your interest in Yamaha Motor and put together a little celebratory picture featuring Yamaha products you can find in the air, on the land, and at sea.   Yamaha Motor headquarters began operating this page in July 2021 and we had just 10,000 or so followers back then, so to reach 10 times that number in about 3.5 years is beyond what we could have imagined back then.   Thank you again for following our LinkedIn page and please look forward to more interesting content from us!

Kudzu is widely considered a menace of a plant from how it rapidly “devours” buildings. But in Japan, it has been a material used for fabrics for hundreds of years, stretching back to the Kamakura Period (1192–1333). Kudzu was once commonly used in various aspects of Japanese life, such as for hakama in the Edo period and the paper in shoji room dividers.    While there used to be over 40 shops specializing in kudzu fabric in the city of Kakegawa near Yamaha Motor headquarters, that number has dwindled down to just two. As a company that has been based in Shizuoka Prefecture since its founding, we made the decision to adopt kudzu fibers for the business cards held by our roughly 10,000 employees here in Iwata, primarily in the interest of contributing to and preserving a centuries-long traditional craft with roots in the area.    The new business cards will begin being distributed this month and we plan to introduce them to other Yamaha Motor group companies in Japan in the future.    #Yamaha #RevsyourHeart #kudzu #sustainability #tradition #arts #Japan #plants #green #business #culture