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.
Maruti Suzuki, famous for its affordable and easy after-sales service, plans to take its strength to the next level by adding 1500 service outlets by 2015. The company wants to provide car servicing facility for every 25 km across India.
This move was very expected from the auto major as last month MSI had announced to invest about Rs 1,925 crore to set up a third plant with an installed capacity of 2.5 lakh units inside the Manesar facility.
Pankaj Narula, the executive officer of the Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) said
We expect service load at our network multiply manifold, as Maruti Suzuki scales up capacity to 1.7 million units in coming years
Currently, the company has over 2,784 service points which will be increased to over 4,200 outlets in the next five years employing more than 55,000 employees pan India.
The company is also expected to launch its premium Kizashi sedan by the end of this year. It’s pending launches include the R3 MPV, made-in-India car, diesel variant of SX4 and new Swift.
Entry posted on October 28, 2010 by
Shrawan Raja;
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BMW will begin selling its motorcycles in India through three dealers by December 2010. To know the details on the BMW bikes and the locations for India, head over to Indian Motos Blog.
After bring us the new Micra and the Sunny sedan, the Chinese have now got us a new scoop on the Nissan Teana facelift. The new car sports minor changes to the front with much sharper and angular headlamps along with xenon projectors. The car also has newly designed alloys and new tail lights with LED lining.
Since these are spy pics, we do not have any information on the engine specs. But one can see from the pics that the tail sports a new ‘Pure Drive’ badge. So some things have been changed for sure. The latest generation Teana was launched in India last year.
The Teana is not really a seller in the Indian market because it is just too over priced, thanks to the duties levied on the CBU. But Nissan should assemble the Teana in their new Chennai facility next year, once that can handle the production; a point at which we can expect a drastic drop in the prices.
Maruti Suzuki has put a team of engineers together to make their first fully ‘Made in India’ car. The largest automaker in India, it seems, is fed up with giving royalties to parent company Suzuki and has adopted this new strategy.
Just to give you a glimpse of the amount; the company reportedly paid 5.9% of its total revenues to Suzuki which translates to a whopping Rs 188.70 crore!
As a part of its new strategy, company has also recruited top engineers from US auto companies in Detroit who will work under will work under IV Rao and K Asai [Maruti Suzuki's managing executive officers (engineering)] to deliver the car. But the company hasn’t set a deadline for this project nor are they willing to put the platform details on the table.
Once the car is ready, the company could begin demanding a royalty from Suzuki Motors, therefore reversing the present status quo.
Above video features the Inspire; The video otherwise is irrelevant to the article
ICML (International Cars & Motors Limited) owned by the Sonalika Group of companies has announced that it will be launching a brand new SUV in the Indian Market in the near future. The company that is known for making tractors, farm equipment and its only passenger vehicle- the Rhino now wants to launch more passenger vehicles in the very lucrative Indian market.
ICML displayed this SUV as a concept named ‘Inspire’ at the 2008 Auto Expo which was designed in collaboration with Pininfarina. Back then the company said that this ‘World SUV’ would go into production by 2010 and would be manufactured at its Amb Plant in Himachal Pradesh.
Toyota has been going through troubled times off late thanks to the global recalls for its vehicles. In the Unites States had to recall many of its vehicles to fix certain issues which has seriously dented its image. The US Government also slapped a fine on the company for putting people’s lives in jeopardy due to its faulty products.
Toyota which for years has been known as one of the most reliable brands in business wants to win its customers back. Now the news coming in is that the next generation of the Corolla that was to roll out in the near future, has been delayed to as late as 2014, according to Autoincar. The Toyota Corolla was also a victim of the recalls and Toyota now wants to make sure that this new product has bullet proof reliability.
The Corolla is a very famous car for Toyota, its best seller for years and in a way is symbolic of the brand. Therefore the company needs more time to validate this product and make it fault free which has led to its delay. So, according to our friends at Autoincar, we need to wait longer before we can see the all new Corolla out on the streets.
Now this is a good thing that Toyota wants to make sure that the next gen Corolla is free of any defects and fault free but with the delay the current Corolla is bound to lose market share. The Cruze is gunning for the Corolla and is a very competent rival, the new Civic is also due for next year which leaves the Corolla as the olden goldie of the lot. Both its main competitors will have diesel and petrol options in the next few years, and Toyota if not timely with the Corolla, could miss out on numbers.
At a recent event conducted by Hyundai, IAB had this opportunity to connect with the company’s top brass.
When questioned about the ix35′s (new Hyundai Tucson) chances in India, they swiftly replied that no more than one SUV was planned for the moment. The ix35 is available in the RHD format so a CBU option is there for the taking.
More importantly, the ix35 is available only with 5 seats and if imported, the value for money proposition won’t be interesting anymore.
Hyundai stated the Santa Fe’s prices were merely introductory. We predict the company will observe the vehicle’s acceptance here and take a decision accordingly on whether to continue importing or assemble vehicles, although the latter is not on the company’s immediate plans.
