Toyota Etios for India to Enter Production

Japanese manufacturer Toyota announced today it plans to begin trial production of the Etios model for the Indian market in September, way ahead of the original scheduled production start set for December. Now December has become the launch date of the model, bringing India in line with the other countries of the world scheduled to receive the model in the last month of the year.

"Before starting the commercial production in December, we will have two rounds of trial productions. While one will start in September, the next one will be in October," Shekar Viswanathan , Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) deputy managing director was quoted as saying by PTI.

The trial production models will however not be for sales, but will be used to test the vehicle's systems. According to Business Standard, the model was the focus of no less than 2,000 engineers from Toyota's labs in Japan and India for the past four years. The results of all that hard work should transform into diversity and quality, according to Toyota.

"We are looking at every possible alternative to launch Etios. Apart from diesel and petrol variants, we will study the market and demand for launching the car in other fuel options (LPG and CNG) and hybrid mode," added the carmaker's Asia Pacific president Mitsuhiro Sonoda.

For now, the confirmed plans are that in India, the car will be offered with two engine options, a 1.2l and a 1.5l gasoline units. There's no word on the sales target Toyota set for the model in the country.