The car will be revealed in all its glory at the upcoming 14th Auto Expo.
Toyota India has teased its upcoming mid-size saloon on its official website. As reported earlier, the car is the Yaris Ativ, which is said to wear the Vios badge in India.
Essentially the same cars with different designs, both the Yaris Ativ and the Vios are popular mid-size offerings from Toyota across various ASEAN markets. The former is a low-cost version of the Vios with slightly more pronounced design and a less powerful engine. However, Toyota will address the power issue by switching the global-spec Ativ’s 1.2-litre petrol engine with the Etios’s 1.5-litre in India.
Industry rumors suggest that CVT gearbox will be introduced with this engine to target the Honda City automatic. However, another interesting development comes in the form of the lack of diesel option. With demand for small/mid-sized diesel cars plummeting, Toyota is said to axe the diesel option altogether on its upcoming saloon.
Dimensionally, the India-spec Vios is 4,425mm long, 1,730mm wide and 1,475mm tall, while the wheelbase stands at 2,550mm. This makes the upcoming Toyota somewhere similar in size to the third-gen Hyundai Verna. The interior of the car, while not as contemporary as that of the City or the Verna, is still leagues ahead of the Etios’s spartan cabin. We are also positive that the Vios’s interior will boast of better plastic quality and finishing levels compared to Etios’s.
Since the mid-size saloon segment is full feature rich cars, we also expect Toyota to equip the Vios at par with the competition, if not any better. Therefore, expect features like 16-inch alloy wheels, LED DRLs, passive entry with push button start, automatic climate control, leather upholstery, cruise control, touchscreen infotainment system, etc. to be standard, at least on the top-spec variant.
The Toyota Vios will compete with the Honda City, Maruti Suzuki Ciaz, Hyundai Verna, Skoda Rapid and Volkswagen Vento – the first two have been dominating monthly sales figures almost consistently. We expect Toyota to remain competitive with Vios’s pricing in order to better compete with established players.
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