Toyota the world's largest carmaker, wants its first compact car in India, Etios, to be a segment leader in India's huge compact car market, says Sandeep Singh, deputy managing director (marketing) at Toyota Kirloskar Motor. This follows poor sales of the world's best selling hybrid electric car the Toyota Prius in China, where all electric cars are selling poorly as yet and foreign importers complain of particular difficulties.
The Japanese car major, which is present in India through a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group, is investing Rs 3,200 crore to set up its second manufacturing facility in Bangalore to roll out its first small car in India by December.
India is proving a more welcoming market than China, with excellent response to Fortuner, Toyota's first sports utility vehicle (SUV) in India. It now has a backlog of almost six months. Toyota wants Etios to replicate the same success when it hits the Indian roads in December 2010, Mr Singh told ET. Toyota expects Etios will be a harbinger of change in India and make it segment leader. Besides catapulting Toyota Kirloskar Motor into a big car player. In 2011, of the total expected sales of 1.5 lakh units, Etios sales are expected to be around 67,000 units.
The car was generated after minutely studying the Indian market and developed completely in Japan as a hatchback and sedan. Etios is specifically made for India, Toyota is taking it across the country under the 'World First, India First' tagline that has gained tremendous response. Toyota sales in India rose 46% in the first quarter of 2010.
Source: Toyota
In August 2010, Toyota announced that it will start trial production of Etios for the Indian market in September 2010, three months ahead of its proposed launch. Over 2,000 engineers from Toyota's Indian and Japanese operations have been working on developing the model for the last four years.
"We are looking at every possible alternative to launch Etios. Apart from diesel and petrol variants, we will study the market and demand for launching the car in other fuel options (LPG and CNG) and hybrid mode," Toyota Motor Asia Pacific President Mitsuhiro Sonoda had said.
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