The world’s automotive leader, Toyota Motor does not really have a great position in the Indian car market. Toyota is only the 6th largest car maker in India where it has its presence in the form of the Toyota Kirloskar Motor. However, during the ongoing long car market slump the company’s sales rate has been dwindling for quite some time now. However, this situation has been true for most of the other car makers in India as well.
As the other car makers are all very earnestly trying to cope up with the market slump by launching new cars in India, Toyota is also planning to do the same. For this year’s new launches, Toyota has already unveiled its all new Corolla Altis and the Etios Cross. While the Etios Cross has already commenced its official pre-launch bookings and is expected to be launched in May, the new Corolla Altis’ launch is also not far away.
One of the hottest segments in India of the recent times is that of the compact SUV. The compact SUVs are currently the newest most favored choice of the modern Indian car buyers, as these are powerful, spacious and aggressively styled. The most attractive fact about these cars is that they are city cars that can be efficiently driven on rough terrain as well. Unlike the traditional SUVs, these are not bulky or boxy and offer great style and are the new age urban cars. The urban SUVs such as the Ford EcoSport and Renault Duster are the new age favorites in the Indian car market. Toyota is thus, also looking to offer an urban SUV in India to fight it out with the likes.
Toyota is trying to bring in a SUV that will be positioned below the RAV4 in the international car markets to compete with the likes of the Nissan Juke, Ford EcoSport and the Honda Vezel and is working hard to do so according to reports.
Toyota Motor’s Australian wing’s product planner, Mr. Mark Dobson has also admitted to media that the very potential global mini SUV market cannot be ignored by Toyota for long.
According to Toyota market studies, the urban car consumers wish to have cars that are high on fuel efficiency, safety, have compact design and also make a lifestyle statement. All these demands could be catered by a more compact version of the Toyota RAV4, which is the smallest SUV from the Japanese car maker.
Toyota’s budget brand identity Daihatsu also offers the ‘Terios’ mini SUV in some Asian markets that is rebadged by Toyota as the ‘Rush’. However, design wise it is not expected to be much appealing to the young generation of urban SUV lovers. Interestingly the earlier version of the Terios SUV is offered in India by Premier Automotive, rebadged as the Rio SUV.
Thus, it cannot be told on which model Toyota will decide on, but both the Indian as well as the global car markets are expected to get a new mini SUV from Toyota very soon.
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I am into the auto blogs field for quite a long time. Living my passion of reviewing cars.
Tagged: Daihatsu Terios
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