When the whole world is going hybrid then why India should be left behind from that heated trend, so to make the things better here Toyota is studying hybrid-possibility for our local market.
To an extent, the well renowned Prius hybrid exists on our Indian shores, and is being a due for an increment to the existing range of automaker’s specified range, who now had vowed “more” lined-up for this particular segment of global market, which can be termed as a plan to sell 1 million newly launched hybrid models till 2015.
As learnt, Toyota had 18 hybrid models in the pipeline meant to be rolled out till 2015, out of which 5 are the re-modeled version of present makes.
Getting into the sneak peek, Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) had crossed sales figure of 50 lakh hybrid vehicles on 31st March 2013, as calculating the numbers since 1997, the time when this Japanese carmaker had launched its first hybrid in world, present total accumulates out of 19 hybrid models and a one plug-in being sold across 80 countries; whereas the Prius in India too had witnessed an increment of 70% i.e. to 12 units in 2012-13 from 7 units in the last financial year.
Meanwhile, a statement from top brass of Toyota in Japan had made us to think twice on the bespoken Prius issue, as he says, ”We have already introduced the Prius to Indian market and we will continue to study the Indian market to introduce new hybrid models in India at appropriate times.”
One can say that, high pricing is the sole pinching factor behind low sales of Prius, slated to be an outcome of the CBU route which makes the selling cost high, as burgeoned with lumps of high taxes and duties on the fully build cars unlikely to only handful of overheads in CKD route. Well the officials had declined to comment frugally on the possibility of adopting that latter option in India, as they say, “Depending on the future market dynamics, we will study and take a decision accordingly.” Toyota also had not inclined any time frame for same, so we can say that the plans are still on shaky grounds, needs to be worked out properly on behalf of Indian context.
Lastly, for claiming the top line of Prius, Toyota had priced it in between Rs 29.26 lakh and Rs 31.43 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).