Toyota plans petrol version of Innova following ban on diesel vehicles

Carmaker Toyota is working on a petrol variant of its multi-purpose vehicle Innova after the company’s sales took a hit following a ban on registration of diesel cars with 2,000cc and above engines in Delhi-NCR. “Delhi-NCR is the biggest market among other regions of the country. Since sales of Innova and Fortuner have stopped there, there will be considerable impact in overall sales,” VP of Toyota Kirloskar Motor Sailesh Shetty told PTI on the sidelines of the launch of Innova Crysta here.

“Last year, we had sold 1.39 lakh cars in the country.  This year, the sales figure will be in that region,” Shetty said today. He further said, “We are meeting all the emission norms as per government regulations... Diesel is a good fuel and we hope that the ban will be lifted some day. However, we are working on the petrol engine of Innova, the highest selling MPV in the country”.

He said that Toyota had not been able to sold any Innova or Fortuner vehicles in Delhi NCR since the ban was imposed since December-end. Sales of MPVs in India was between 8,000 to 9,000 units per month, he said, adding that 7 per cent of the sales has been hit in Delhi-NCR following the ban. The earlier version of Innova would be phased out which would be replaced by Innova Crysta. In the meantime, the new vehicle saw a good response from consumers on the first day of its launch.

“Over 60 per cent of the 15,000 bookings we have received so far are for the automatic version that too of the top-end model,” Toyota Kirloskar Motor vice chairman Shekar Vishwanathan told reporters after launching the new MPV in Mumbai.

As of now, the customers in Mumbai will have to wait for more than two months to get delivery. As the demand increases they will ramp up output and lower the waiting period, he said. The topend Innova Crysta (2.8-liter, 8-seater with AMT) comes for Rs 20.77 lakh here while the low-end model is priced at Rs 13.83 lakh.

He said since 2005, the year Innova was first launched, the company has sold a little over 6 lakh Innovas in the country, while globally it has 1.6 million customers. The Innova was sold only in three markets apart from India - Indonesia, Thailand and Dubai.

Innova has been the market leader from the start. Despite the market getting so much cluttered with almost all companies having at least one model in the MPV segment, it still enjoys 35 per cent market share, the company said.