5. Mazda
Halfway trough the list and on the number five we have the Japanese automaker Mazda.
Founded in Hiroshima, Japan in 1920, it was first known as Toyo Cork Kogyo, and they manufactured machine tools, but it was later renamed to Toyo Kogyo, in 1927.
In 1931 Toyo Kogyo switched to manufacturing vehicles with the introduction of the Mazda-Go autorickshaw.
They formally adopted the Mazda brand name in 1984, though every vehicle sold from the beginning bore that name.
Mazda has conducted research in hydrogen-powered vehicles for several decades, and it has developed a hybrid version of its Premacy compact minivan, using a version of its signature rotary engine that can run on hydrogen or gasoline.
Mazda produced almost 1.3 million vehicles for global sales only in 2007, and was the fifteenth biggest automaker by production worldwide.
