Great grandson to the founder of Toyoda Automatic Loomworks, and grandson to the Toyota Motors founder, Akio Toyoda was born May 3, 1956, at Nagoya to Shoichiro Toyoda and Hiroko née Mitsui. As the great grandson of Sakichi Toyoda, patent holding Inventor of a long line of steam, oil, and electric Looms, Toyoda's talented family line have long dominated the upper management of the family bussinesses, since the days his carpenter-farmer great great grandfather, Ikichi Toyoda taught his son fabrication and carpentry. Like Toyoda's Father, Shoichiro Toyoda, his 52-year-old son, Akio Toyoda, was the chief contender for the family Business when Katsuaki Watanabe was reassigned as Vice-Chairman, in the wake of the quality control crisis.

Toyoda completed his undergraduate work in law at Keio University in Japan, and was awarded his Masters of Finance at Babson College in Massachusetts. He would join the family Business in 1984.

As an avid auto racing fan and driver himself, Toyoda has promoted Sports Models like the Lexus IS-F and Lexus LF-A at auto races. He has participated as a driver at events like the ADAC 24-STUNDEN-RENNEN 2009 race employing the pseudonym Morizo Kinoshita. In 2009, he reached the 87th position overall and the fourth position in his class with his LF-A Prototyp No. 14.

In the wake of massive global recalls ballooning to 8.5 million vehicles, on February 17, 2010, Toyoda was invited to testify at the U.S. Congress, of which he accepted. A week later, he issued a prepared statement to the Congress. He focused on three key issues, Toyota's basic philosophy regarding quality control; the cause of the recalls; and ″how we will manage quality control going forward″. On February 24, 2010, accompanied by President and COO of Toyota Motor North America, Yoshimi Inaba, Toyoda testified before the House of Representatives', Oversight and Government Reform Committee. As the scion of a family world renown for their contributions to automated Manufacturing, the quality control crises personally effected the former Massachusetts student, Toyoda. In his comments he is quoted as being "deeply sorry" and highlighted the relations between Toyota Vehicles in the United States and Americans for fifty years.

In 2012, he was named Autocar's Man of the Year.