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| Edited By: DNA Money Correspondent |Source: DNA |Updated: May 14, 2018, 05:15 AM IST
The government should focus on lowering emissions and let the customers decide which technology is most suitable for them. Such ecosystem will lead to increasing acceptance of eco-friendly vehicles, believes Vikram S Kirloskar, vice chairman – Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM). In an interview with DNA Money, Kirloskar also talks about the newly-launched Yaris, roadmap for the company, the regulatory environment, among other things.
Our motto is never driven by volume. We always strive to provide ever-better products and services to the customer. Currently, the focus is to make our operations competitive through continuous improvisations. We coherently adapt to the changing market needs, while keeping the fundamentals intact. Our approach has always been 'customer first'. We would like to ensure that we retain our existing customers by offering beyond their expectations, making them come back to us for mobility needs. Therefore, our vision is to add more value to the customer experience and delight. Safety is also of utmost priority to us. Toyota has constantly worked towards developing better technology to provide enhanced safety. Our focus is Human Safe, Technology Safe & Environment Safe. Toyota is the first in the industry to standardise ABS with EBD across all models and in all grades. We are also the first in the industry to standardise dual front airbags for both driver and passenger. The newly-launched Toyota Yaris is the first car in its segment to offer 7 SRS airbags – (D+P airbags, side airbags, curtain shield airbags (CSA) and knee airbag) across all its variants. Besides, we would also concentrate on further promoting cleaner technologies with technology agnostic approach with alternate powertrains to meet the customer preferences and market requirements.
This announcement is another outcome of Toyota and Suzuki's concluded memorandum of understanding towards business partnership. The two companies have been exploring concrete projects for collaboration in areas including environmental technology, safety technology, information technology and mutual supply of products and components. It underscores the progress Toyota and Suzuki have together made and aims to bolster both companies' product lineups and encourage competition in the Indian automotive market. We believe that, as we sell vehicles through our respective sales networks, customers will have a larger number of choices and competition of environmentally-friendly vehicles will be further invigorated, resulting in benefits to customers. This collaboration is about new learnings and leveraging each others' strengths.
In our opinion, the primary focus should be energy and environment. India has the unique distinction of having most polluted cities and also nearly 80% of our crude being imported, which has a huge impact on the foreign exchequer. Thus, it would be in the interest of the country to mandate certain missions on the protection of environment and energy security. Any technology which supports these two missions should be encouraged, and thus, we hope the government to be technology agnostic. The focus of the government should be on lowering emissions and energy use from well to wheel and let the customers finally decide which technology is most suitable for them. Such ecosystem in place will support in sustaining and enhancing the economic growth trend and also aid in a gradual shift to electrification with increasing acceptance of eco-friendly vehicles. From the beginning, TKM has been supporting government plans for electric mobility. In fact, we were the first OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to bring hybrid electric vehicles to India. Owing to barriers for battery electric vehicles [BEV] adoption, we believe going ahead all electric technologies would have a role to play, including hybrids, plug-in hybrids and fuel cell.
We have been receiving an overwhelming response. Soon after the unveiling at Auto Expo, Toyota Yaris won nationwide appreciation for its class-leading features, superior comfort, top-notch quality and excellent performance. This clearly shows that the Yaris has brought out the same excitement in the people that we had when we were thinking of bringing it to India. Our customers are not just value seekers but discerning achievers. We hope that the Yaris will carve a niche on its own with its class-leading safety, futuristic design and first-in-segment features that exceed its class, making it a leader in the segment with high aspirational value and advanced design and technology.
We can't comment on our specific future product plans. We at Toyota continuously evaluate the market and introduce products at a suitable time. Such introductions would be determined by various underlying factors such as market scenarios, government regulations, tax policies, competition, advanced technology adoptions, customer preferences and many more.
We can't specifically comment on our future export plans. We will continue to export our Etios series to countries such as South Africa, Indonesia, etc. Having said that, Toyota is a global player with multi-production base in many countries, thus limiting our export space. For India, to be a truly global player competing with the developed nations, harmonisation or adoption of global standards is a must. Not only will it give India an export advantage but also a tremendous boost to both vehicle OEMs as well as supplier chain to export globally. This will enable large volumes, increase employment, reduce imports and enhance the global competitiveness of domestic suppliers. Also, global alignment of India's regulations and standards of the auto sector will support in achieving availability of locally produced/manufactured products besides enhancement of export opportunities.
The growth story of Indian automobile market is dotted with challenges that we need to tackle head-on. Our regulatory environment has been unstable over the past few years. We have been bracing ourselves with the rollout of regulatory/policy changes with goods and services tax implementation, leapfrogging to BS-VI, CAFE (corporate average fuel economy) norms, electric mobility mission and so on. The government has started giving more significance to the development of more eco-friendly and safer vehicles while looking at introducing tighter norms towards achieving this. While the move is towards a positive direction, the greater challenge will be the increasing cost implications. As OEMs look to develop alternate mobility technologies, the future market demands and production plans need to be centrally aligned. A long-term clear roadmap needs to be laid out in order to bring clarity and certainty in the future growth path.
The auto industry is critically dependent on the adherence to the timelines on regulatory policies. Needless to mention, sudden policy changes create an uncertain business scenario - increasing the business risks, demotivating the sentiments of foreign investors. Most importantly, it impacts the long-term product strategy and the introduction of newer vehicles. The automotive industry is such a large employer in many local economies. A lot of countries are building regulatory frameworks that incentivise manufacturing and exports. These and other potential regulatory changes are therefore particularly relevant to global auto industry players. A clear and long-term roadmap aids in developing viable manufacturing strategies to give a further boost to the nation's growth with collaborative efforts. A stable regulatory framework will certainly support developmental plans with optimum resource utilisation and more so to align with the Make-in-India initiative. With automakers playing a leading role in the sustainability revolution already underway, we believe that consumer demand will continue to direct the industry towards cleaner cars, more so than any regulations. And the car manufacturers are going to have to build into their plans with alternate powertrains.
We believe in playing a much greater role than just manufacturing world-class cars. Consumers today have become increasingly knowledgeable about safer and greener technologies with ever-increasing expectations on enhanced safety features, fuel efficiency, comfort as well as luxury. The market is much competitive with wider opportunities. We will continue our concerted efforts leading the way to the future of mobility and build ever-better cars and communities in harmony with nature through sustainable approaches to meet the ever-growing expectations of the customers.
Our company takes inspiration from the 'Toyota Earth Charter', and has formulated environment-friendly policies for its business operations, which have been followed since 1992. We are committed for our vision of greener tomorrow and have announced our long-term commitment towards the society and environment through Toyota Environmental Challenge 2050, which is in alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Out of the total 17 challenges, 12 are directly linked to the six environmental challenges declared by Toyota. We globally believe that the electrification of vehicles is required to reduce CO2 emissions. Toyota has been a pioneer in the electrified vehicle space with the Prius which is the first mass-produced electrified car 20 years ago. Considering the pressing issues of fuel emission, high oil import dependency, energy security, we see alternate powertrains such as HV, PHEV, etc, as the ideal solutions for India. We would like to utilise our global experience with 11 million units of hybrid vehicle sales and 20 years development history of electrified vehicles to align with the government's objective towards achieving clean and green eco-society.
