Toyota plans small car under Toyota Etios Liva

The Japanese auto company, Toyota, is delighted over the response it has received on its new car Toyota Etios (sedan) and Toyota Etios Liva (hatch) and now to utilize the fastest growing auto sector in its favour, the company plans bring up another small car which will be positioned below Toyota Etios Liva. Toyota Motors recently introduced its much awaited Toyota Etios seedan and will be coming with the hatchback of the same in April 2011, Toyota Etios Liva. As per the sources, the company will build the small car on the same lines of its sedan model launched recently in India. Yoshinori Noritake, Chief Engineer, Product Planning said that Toyota Etios design was structured in various ways. In the small car, there is a lot of scope for accumulating and subtracting various features as per the requirements. He added that, the sedan version has huge potential which can be explored and used to make the small car.

The Japanese auto giant has already invested Rs 3,200 crore on the manufacturing of Toyota Etios platform, and this development has allowed the maker's to utilize the platform to come up with multi purpose use in its vehicle. The company inaugurated a new manufacturing unit in Bidadi, Karnataka especially constructed to manufacture the Toyota Etios and Toyota Etios Liva. Among other aims, the company plans to roll out 70,000 units every year. Toyota's 2000 engineers invested their four years in making the technological wonder,Toyota Etios. Noritake, further on the development of the new car, said that, for the company's other cars, the automobile engineers used to take the car designs to its suppliers and ordered them with the material specifications. But with Toyota Etios it was different. The engineers researched and inquired with the suppliers and agents on the components and used the information to build the car design with the price constraint while maintaining the quality. The whole process gave them a great insight about the car. He went on saying that, in Toyota Etios the engine area is quite spacious which can be further utilized for manufacturing cars in various segments.

The Toyota Etios (sedan) comes with a price tag of Rs 4.96 laks to Rs 6.86 lakh competing with the likes such as Maruti Swift Dzire and Tata Manza. The Toyota Etios Liva, the hatchback version of the car is expected o roll out with the price tag of Rs 4.3 lakh to Rs 4.8 lakh pitching against Maruti Swift, Hyundai i20, Ford Figo and Volkswagen Polo. The official price of the hatchback will be announced after the Union budget in 2011. The Japanese auto giant is confident about its new cars and plans to double the sale target by next year in India. The company wished to sell almost 140,000 to 150,000 cars in 2011. Other than the newly unfolded sedan and hatchback, the company also owns a MUV Toyota Innova and the premium sedans Toyota Corolla Altis and Toyota Camry. With this huge expansion in portfolio, the company aims to cater to 10 per cent of market share in the domestic auto market by 2015. In 2009-10, the company sold 1.5 million cars in India. In the global auto market, Toyota Motors was the biggest auto manufacturer in 2010, even after a considerable decline in sales by 4.4 per cent which accounted to 7.24 million cars over the last year's sales figures.

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