The Hindu Business Line : Toyota small car to be benchmarked against Swift, i20

Tokyo, Oct. 21 To take on the fierce price competition in the mass-market passenger car segment, Toyota’s planned small car will be benchmarked against existing hatchbacks such as the Suzuki Swift and the Hyundai i20. It will be positioned at the premium end of the small car market and will be relevant to the Indian buyer’s tastes and preferences.

Talking to Business Line, Mr Yoshinori Noritake, Chief Engineer, Product Planning, Toyota Vehicle Development Centre 2, said that the new car being developed by Toyota and due for launch by late next year or early 2011, will be within four metres in length and will be feature a 1.2-litre gasoline engine initially.

The same car platform and the same engine block could be used to develop a sedan with a slightly bigger, possibly, 1.5-litre petrol engine, he said. A diesel engine within the 1.5-litre engine size requirement (for the lower excise duty levy) may follow the petrol version.

Mr Noritake said that the company’s development programme is taking into consideration a sizeable level of research that has been conducted on the Indian small car buyer’s preferences by TKM. The design will be globally relevant and yet, enable Toyota to keep costs low, while the quality matches the company’s global level of quality demands.

Though Toyota is working on keeping costs low by sharing components and by increasing the level of local sourcing, the company is still not going to compromise on some quality parameters.

One of those is reflected in the selection of a four-cylinder engine for the proposed car.

Though a three-cylinder engine may be cheaper to produce, Mr Noritake felt that it will lower the level of refinement of the car and so the choice was not made.

The small car will also be at least 10 per cent more fuel-efficient than a similar-size competing vehicle currently in the Indian market.

He added that the new small car will meet Euro IV-level emission norms. — S.M.

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