Toyota Etios launch nears; Will it blow the Swift away?

The most definitive car launch for the Japanese Major Toyota is just weeks away and boy are they rolling their sleeves up!

Right from the getting the music maestro, A R Rahman on board to increasing its dealership network from 82 to 150 in just 2 years, they have got it all figured out. And why not, after all a 3200 crore investment is at stake.

Yukitoshi Funo, Executive VP and member of the board for Toyota Motor said,

The success of the Etios is very critical for Toyota’s success. We have never developed a car as small as this and we will not do anything smaller than this. It is absolutely important that we succeed with the Etios

Funo san forgot about the Toyota iQ? That's the smallest hatch on Toyota's global portfolio. If there's a hatch smaller than Etios, will that be Daihatsu's job of bringing it here considering Toyota is open to idea of setting up a multi-brand strategy in our country?

The company has even managed to localize 70% of the car and further localization will follow suit. Just to give it a yardstick, Skoda Fabia, a hatch present in the market for more than 2 years has only managed 40% localization of its parts. Clearly, Toyota knows that it has to shed its ‘high price’ image very soon to be appeal to the masses.

Being developed as an India-specific product, the company also plans to introduce the Etios in places like Brazil.

Source - Economic Times