Toyota may offer hybrid Etios in India

Toyota Motor Corporation is considering offering the hybrid option on the Etios model in India. A hybrid car has two sources of power — one from a petrol/diesel engine and the other from a powerful battery.

The Etios, which is present in India in its conventional sedan and hatchback avatars, may undergo the hybrid transmutation.

Fun driving

The Etios hybrid will be directed at the new generation of upwardly mobile, prosperous and educated middle-class that is alive to environmental concerns. Over the years, as the market matures, the model, experts predict, is bound to race ahead of the pack in India. Company officials declined to comment on the expected time of launch or the broad pricing details.

Way back in 1993, Toyota, now the World’s No. 1 hybrid car maker, turned out such vehicles with the twin objectives of achieving high standards of fuel economy and controlling emissions. “At Toyota, where we have so far produced 5 million hybrid vehicles, we strongly believe that we should do justice to both areas,” Satoshi Ogiso, Managing Officer, Toyota Motor Corporation, told a group of visiting journalists from various Asian countries recently at Toyota City. (Located on the main island of Honshu, Koromo City became globally famous after Toyota located there and the city was given the eponymous name in 1959.)

While the acutely environment-conscious may prefer electric cars, hybrid vehicles offer other advantages, such as not needing charging outlets or a long charging time, no range limitations and, above all, an internal combustion engine back-up.

In 2008, Honda tried unsuccessfully to market hybrids in India, by bringing in the Honda Civic hybrid. Perhaps, it was a little too early. In the absence of tax incentives and the general lack of awareness of the relative merits of such vehicles, only 300 units of the car were imported.

Fortunately for Toyota, the timing appears more apt now, at least in Japan. With people becoming more green and fuel-economy conscious, aided by generous tax incentives, Toyota sold in 2012 over one million hybrids compared with 1.5 million units sold from the time these vehicles were launched in 1997, till 2008.

Toyota, in its own words, is all set to enter a new phase in hybrid history — “real popularisation”.

In the case of India, Toyota is encouraged by the National Electric Mobility Master Plan 2020, which includes the promise of a stable regime of incentives to achieve a target of 1.7 million units (19 per cent of total output) of different variants of hybrids and electric four-wheelers by 2020.

Lighter option

Crucial to hybrids is the powertrain, of which the battery is key. Toyota has in-house facilities to produce Ni-metal hydride batteries. But, now, the company has intensified efforts to introduce lithium ion batteries that are lighter and take less time to charge. “In 2011, some of the hybrid vehicles and the Prius plug-in started to adopt lithium ion battery. Safety is critical, and should not be compromised to reduce cost,” said Ogiso.

On the prospects for the Etios hybrid in India, Kouji Toyoshima, Chief Engineer, TMC, said: “If it happens, it could be a smart solution for Indians, who are smart.”

(The writer’s trip was sponsored by Toyota Motor Corporation.)

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