India is a market no major car company can ignore, if they want to maitnain their leadership position, they have to find sales in India.
Like China, India is a unique market that requires specialist products and since it is a very large market, car companies can afford to design a model specifically for the Indian market.
The Toyota Etios is the model that the Japanese carmaker hopes will help them capture the market, it is a B-segment saloon that is designed to entice buyers with the low price, well not that low.
Price of the car is set to float around the USD11K mark which makes it a direct competitor to the Proton Saga.
The Etios is a basic car and it shows in the design, the simple slab-sided design hints at low manufacturing cost and the same low-cost indicators can be found inside the cabin.
The simple flat seats and two-tone two-part dashboard is a simple and cheap way of hiding inconsistencies in the plastic parts
The ribbed roof is yet another low-cost way of increasing roof rigidity, hideous but effective.
Toyota gave the Etios a 1.5-litre inline four cylinder that has the exhaust manifold integrated into the cylinder head. engine code is 2NR-FE.
This motor cranks out 90 horsepower, if you think this is feeble, just remember that the Etios weigh a mere 930 kilogrammes so the power to weight ratio is 10kg per horsepower, not bad at all for an entry-level car.
The power output is considerably lower than the 109hp produced by similar 1.5-litre FE-series engine found in Malaysia but there is a very good reason for this, it has been tuned for fuel efficiency and in Indian combined cycle, the car will burn through 5.67litre/100km.
Specs level are J, G, V and VX but I cant tell you what that means other than the fact that J is the lowest spec level and VX are bought by people should be buying a class higher but is being penny pinchers.
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