The Hindu Business Line : Toyota to tread cautiously on India plans

Tokyo, Oct. 24 Toyota Motor Corporation has revealed that its bitter experience with its former partner, the DCM Group in India, had made the auto maker to become cautious while drawing up plans for the country.

“We have had extremely bitter experience with DCM earlier. Hence, we wanted to be very cautious while drawing up plans for India,” Toyota Kirloskar Motor Company Chairman and a board member of Toyota Motor Corporation, Mr Dato’ Akira Okabe, told Business Line.

He said one of the reasons for entering a niche segment like the multi-utility vehicle segment in India instead of launching cars for the mass market was because it did not want a repeat of the experience it had with DCM.

Toyota Motor Corporation, currently, has a joint venture with the Kirloskar Group in India.

While almost all the global car manufacturers either have launched a small car for India or have announced their plans, Toyota is yet to make a formal announcement.

Mr Okabe who is also the Senior Managing Director for Asia, Oceania & Middle East Operations Group, said Toyota is now confident of launching more cars in India because it believes that India will remain stable in the future too. On the plans for the small car, Mr Okabe said that his company wants to introduce a car in the B segment.

“It should be (in a segment) higher than that of Maruti 800 and lower than Corolla,” he said. “We would like to launch a car in the B segment,” he said.

Partnering with its subsidiary Daihatsu to launch a small car was an option which the company was seriously considering.

He said cost, safety and the current environment were the issues which the auto maker was studying while drawing up plans for the project. He added that the small car project might be customised to suit Indian conditions but the platform could be common for the rest of the emerging markets in the world.

Stating that the Tatas’ plan to launch a Rs 1-lakh car was a challenge for the Indian car company, he, ruled out plans to compete with them in that segment.