Reference Auto

Toyota has sent the hatchback market into a tizzy by launching Etios clone Liva at a highly competitive price of between Rs 3.99 lakh and Rs 5.99 lakh (ex showroom Delhi), but with this launch, the Liva could eat into the market of its big brother, the Etios, in a big way.

Auto companies operating in the Indian market have literally heated up the hatchback segment, which has seen a litany of cars such as the Chevrolet Beat and Uva, Maruti Ritz and Swift, Ford Figo and Hyundai i10 and i20, among others, slugging it out in the Rs 3 lakh-Rs 6 lakh market that logs almost 70 per cent of the total car sales in the country.

The Liva hatchback has a 1.2 litre MPFI petrol engine, which is its power house. The car offers a maximum power of 80 bhp.

It apparently comes with good fuel efficiency of 16 km a litre and decent performance, according to Toyota.

Although a hatch, the Liva offers adequate luggage space, which is surely going to be one of its USPs.

Customers are, in fact, waiting with baited breath to grab their hands on the Toyota Liva, which could scale up the Japanese automaker’s sales and revenues big time.

The economical pricing and the Toyota brand will see many make a beeline to get their Liva.

“With the Liva, we will turn out to be a total manufacturer in the country, offering a full range of vehicles from the luxury SUV Prado to the compact Liva, which is a very stylish and a dynamic car,” Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) managing director Hiroshi Nakagawa said.

In India, Toyota operates through a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group.

Toyota-Kirloskar is pumping in over Rs 3,000 crore to set up a second manufacturing plant in Bangalore with an installed capacity of 70,000 cars a year. It plans to raise production capacity at the plant by next year. The company’s first plant is also in Bangalore.

“We will scale up production capacity of the second plant from 70,000 vehicles to 1.2 lakh by next year. This will shorten waiting period of the Etios and meet future demand of the Liva,” Nakagawa said.

The Japanese giant is producing 6,000 Etios and Liva cars per month and it will be raised to 8,000 by September.

An upbeat Toyota-Kirloskar deputy managing director Sandeep Singh (marketing) said, “This year, we plan to sell 60,000 cars of both the Etios and the Liva. Of this, more than 20,000 could be of the Liva.”

He said that with the two models, the company will vie with 13 cars from rivals in the B segment.

“Out of the total passenger car market, the B segment’s share is about 38 per cent. Etios has already clinched 8 per cent of this market,” Singh added.

Even the looks of the new Toyota Liva have made many potential buyers awe-struck. So, there could be many who would want to be proud owners of a Toyota car. After all, Toyota is the world’s top car seller.

But those waiting for diesel variants of the Liva and the Etios are in for some disappointment as the Japanese car giant is not planning to launch diesel variants of the two cars in the near term or for about a year.

Last year, the company had launched the coveted Etios, which is a sedan version of the Liva. But, with the Liva rollout, Toyota may witness a slowdown in sales growth of its Etios and this possible slump could prompt the Japanese car maker to lower the price of the Etios.