Toyota cars are usually greatly appreciated in the global car markets. However, even the best cars in the world don’t always get the success intended for them. Something similar has happened to the Toyota Etios and Etios Liva cars in Brazil.
Toyota had designed the cost effective sedan and hatchback variants of the Etios for the emerging car markets, keeping India especially in mind and were launched in the rather similar Brazilian market in 2012 as the entry level sedan and hatch offerings. However, though the cars are pretty popular in India, they have not received much of attention from the car consumers of Brazil.
Other rivals car companies such as Hyundai and Chevrolet had also launched their respective cars in the Brazilian market that were exclusively designed and developed for it. While, the Hyundai HB20 and the Chevrolet Onix became hugely popular and are among the top 10 bestselling models in Brazil, the Etios range could manage just to the top 30 cars in the market in 2013.
Being the world’s leading automotive giant, Toyota can’t be disarmed so easily though. According to the reports the Japanese car major is contemplating to fully revamp the Etios and the Etios Liva and the company is expected to launch the next-gen models towards the end of the year 2015.
Some of the primary reasons that were pointed out to be the cause of the Etios brand’s inability to appeal to the Brazilian car market are the cars’ plain and boring exterior styling and the rather cheap material quality of the interior. Toyota had recently tried to compensate a little for the low quality interiors by offering a faux carbon fiber finish to the cars’ central console, redesigned switchgear and better quality fabric material for the seats in the facelift Etios. The refreshed Etios range is however a temporary attempt to boost its sales, before Toyota can bring in the all improved next gen models for both the Etios sedan and the Etios Liva hatchback in another two years’ time.
Much detail is available at the moment and Toyota has not disclosed anything on this matter as well. However, according to the sources, the Japanese car maker is going to concentrate on an overall new and trendier design appeal apart from improving the overall quality of the Etios brand. Moreover, while Toyota will work on both looks and material quality of the car along with some probable performance enhancements as well (as Toyota usually does), the company is also going to stress on the lower production cost. This is because Toyota does not want to change the basic affordable image of the Etios brand. For this, the company is also going to increasingly source components locally.
In the mean time, Toyota is also expected to offer model year update to the Etios brand and add a new SUV variant to the Etios brand as well. Moreover, the Japanese car major is also expected to launch the 2014 Corolla and Vios sedans in Brazil.
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I am into the auto blogs field for quite a long time. Living my passion of reviewing cars.
Tagged: 2013 Toyota Etios, New Toyota Liva, Toyota Cars India, Toyota India
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