Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) is fast-tracking indigenisation of key auto parts such as engines to ride through falling auto sales in the country.
“What we are trying to achieve is a stable cost structure through indigenisation,” Toyota Kirloskar’s Vice-Chairman for External Affairs Shekar Viswanathan told Business Line . Besides, , the company, a joint venture between Japan’s Toyota Motor Corp and India’s Kirloskar Group, also expects a strong financial base and a variety of products to help it sail through the slowdown in the auto industry.
Viswanathan pointed out that the company’s captive finance arm will come in handy to draw customers as rising interest rates have kept sales down. The automaker expects to provide better incentives to boost sales in 2014.
“High excise duty is killing the industry. In fact, after tobacco, the auto sector is the highest-taxed in the country,” Viswanathan said. The company is also looking forward to the automotive mission plan for 2016-20 which is under discussion now.
It expects the Government to announce several sops as part of the new policy document for the industry such as redrawing norms for imposing excise duty based on the length of a vehicle. “These norms do not allow us to produce the same cars for both domestic sales as well as exports. Therefore, we cannot achieve economies of scale.”
More launches
The company also expects to launch more variants this year, some of which will be showcased at the forthcoming auto expo in Delhi. Among its models, it has two market leaders – the Fortuner sports utility vehicle with a 60 per cent share and the Innova multi-purpose vehicle with a 35 per cent share. However, its compact cars Etios and Liva haven’t made a big dent since their launch in 2011.
“The A and B segments are perhaps the most competitive in the world because of the multitude of cars in that space,” he said. The world’s largest carmaker recently appointed Naomi IIshi as its new MD for India.
He replaces Hiroshi Nakagawa, who returned to the parent company in Japan.