Toyota Unveils Vitz, Claims Best-In-Class Mileage
World’s leading automobile company, Toyota Motors, introduced all new third-generation Vitz hatchback (called Yaris in most others markets), today in Japan. The Japanese auto giants claims the car gets ets best-in-class mileage of 26.5 km/litre. Vitz is Toyota’s top selling gasoline car in Japan. The company has set a monthly sales aim of 10,000 Vitz cars in Japan. Toyota Vitz cost starts at 1.06 million yen ($12,660) and it will hit the world market from mid-2011. Toyota Vitz competes with the segment leader Honda Jazz and Nissan Micra in India which respectively provide mileage of 24.5 kmpl and 26.0 kmpl.
Toyota managed to sell 125,000 vehicles of Vitz in the last financial year. Japanese auto industry is suffering one of their worst times ever. Reports advise the annual car sales are going to decrease by 17% to 1.3 million vehicles. Japan sold the same amount of cars thirty seven years back! Toyota too is facing their one of the worst periods ever in Japan. They hope the new Vitz will help them stabilize their market in Japan. Toyota’s domestic sales fell 35% in November from a year earlier, faring worse than most other brands, although a separate incentive exempting hybrids from some taxes will run until early 2012.