Toyota to build small car in India

Posted at April 12th, 2008 under Auto News |  Print This Post

Toyota Motors today said that will launch a small car in the Indian market and will invest Rs 1400 crore for a new factory that will come up in Bangalore by 2010. Toyota’s new plant will have an annual capacity of 100,000 vehicles, will produce the Corolla sedan and a new low-cost small car, developed specifically for emerging markets. The new low cost car would not be a small car or a hatchback, but an equivalent of a compact sedan like Tata Motors’ Indigo or Maruti’s DZire.Toyota Kirloskar Motor will produce a series of cars between 1.2 litre and 1.5 litre engine capacities. The cars will be both in diesel and petrol versions. Toyota also plans to export the cars produced in its Indian factory later. With the transfer production of Corolla to the new plant, the existing plant is likely to produce vehicles like pick-up vans on the Innova platform. Toyota which eyes 10% market share by 2015 has only 0.6 percent of the Indian car market. Toyota sold 54,000 units in India in 2007 at a growth of 12 per cent. The company currently manufactures models like the MUV Innova, and luxury sedan Corolla apart from importing the Camry and Prado models in India. It’s important to note Toyota’s rivals such as General Motors, Honda. and Volkswagen have already announced a combined $6 billion investment in the country.