Thursday, July 21, 2011
By Pranjal Gera
Romancing with the small car
The world’s largest manufacturer Japanese company Toyota finally launched the hatchback car Liva in India last Tuesday. It would be the cheapest car in India. Toyota has finally satisfied the Indian public’s demand by pricing the Toyota Etios Liva very well. The Etios Liva is the 14th model in the country of hatchback segment.
Toyota Etios Liva is available in four variants and the base model is fighting against Hyundai i10, Maruti Wagon R. whereas more loaded version s are in a contest with Maruti Swift and others. Liva is sharp and sporty, a hatch of tomorrow.
Hiroji Onishi, president, Toyota Motor Co., Asia-Pacific has said that they always knew that big sedans was not enough to growing demands of the market, not only Etios Liva, they need more small cars for the competitive market.
India is a car-enthusiastic country but also an industrial core for small things. For last 15 years, Maruti has seen a number of competitors; Etios Liva is the true competitor to Maruti.
Toyota is known for making big cars like Toyota Corolla Altis and Toyota Camry, now will be confident to find success in the smaller car segment as well. Toyota Etios Liva is ready to fight against Hyundai i10, Maruti Swift and upcoming models like Honda Brio of the same level.
The world’s largest carmakers, Volkswagen and Renault Nissan, all desire to take advantage of Toyota and General Motor's inexperience in making small cars and India being its first competitive market.
Toyota wanted to launch small cars all around the world. Indian market always preferred fuel efficient, small and inexpensive cars. 80% of cars sold in India are small cars as compared to US and China with 3% and 24% respectively.
Toyota Etios Liva has shown that India is a leading manufacturer for small cars. Car companies like Nissan, Renault have made plans to make India their production ground.
John Humphrey, senior vice-president of J.D. Power and Associates said that India is becoming the fastest growing car market in the world.
The cheaper batch of cars like the Tata Nano to the cars like the Toyota Etios Liva and Honda Brio are all expecting growth and success like the legend Maruti 800 and the very successful models of that era like Hyundai i10, Daewoo Matiz, Tata Indica eV2, and Hyundai Santro Xing.
