Toyota to offer Etios Liva instead of Etios

Toyota never estimated how successful the Etios would be in India and now are facing a serious capacity crunch for the car. The company has a huge order list for the Etios and cannot fulfill the orders immediately. It would take atleast 8 months to deliver all the cars to customers who booked their entry level sedan. Thus the company is planning a unique offer to the people in queue with an option to shift to the Etios Liva (the hatchback version of the Etios). The Etios Liva will be launched in March and Toyota is considering increase of the production of all the variants of the Etios to ensure timely delivery. The reason for Toyota considering to shift Etios customers to the hatchback on their approval is due to rising competition. The last thing Toyota wants is customers shifting to alternative brands by canceling their bookings.

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.

Toyota to launch Etios on 1st December

Toyota will finally have a volume player in the Indian market with the launch of the compact Etios on 1^st December 2010.
The Japanese carmaker will first launch the sedan version of the Etios on December 1 followed by the hatchback three months down the line. Last week, Toyota had appointed Oscar winning A.R Rahman as its new brand ambassador who succeeds ace actor Aamir Khan.
Toyota is aiming at selling 70,000 Etios sedans and hatchbacks in the first year and eyeing a 10% market share by 2015.