It’s been four years in the making. It has made the second-largest automotive manufacturer in the world go back to the drawing board again and again. It has made them do things they have never done before. At the end of it, Toyota has this to show, the Etios sedan (the hatchback follows next year). This is the car they have pinned their hopes on, to get the volumes in a country where car sales have been shooting through the roof.
Putting together the EFC platform, as Toyota calls it, which stands for ‘Emerging markets Frontier Concept,’ has been a learning process for them. They have cut down on non-essential parts and made it as simple and low-cost as possible. Still, they cannot compromise to the extent that they’d have to leave the Toyota badge off the car. So the Etios is a well-engineered and relevant product for our country. It will offer decent value, despite possibly being pricier than the Rs 5 to 6.5 lakh range of the Dzire petrol - as we go to press, the car is yet to be launched. So was it worth the wait?
Considering it’s been a virtual monopoly of the Swift and the Dzire in their respective segments, I would say about time too.
The writer was on a media invite from Toyota to drive the new Etios in Japan.
