Toyota plans diverse SUV product blitz

TOYOTA is set to further cement its SUV leadership in Australia with a new wave of models over the next few years.

First cab off the rank is Toyota's revitalised assault on the Ford Territory and Holden Captiva competition with the second-generation Kluger.

The Japanese giant has confirmed that it will be offered in front-wheel as well as all-wheel drive formats. The current Kluger is four-wheel drive only.

Like the existing Kluger, it will continue to be based on the Camry mid-sized sedan.

Due in the second half of 2007, the Kluger II was initially meant to be strictly for the North American market only, where it has sold strongly since its 2000 debut as the Highlander.

However, following a review and requests from local Toyota officials, this vehicle has been reportedly revised expressly for the Australian market.

"This particular Kluger we're getting next year has been built exclusively for Australia," according to Toyota's senior executive director for sales and marketing, David Buttner.

"Originally there was no plan to develop a right-hand drive Kluger, and then through many discussions and approaches we made to (the) chief engineer – who's also the chief engineer for Camry and Aurion – (and) he agreed to produce a right-hand drive version.

"So we've been very fortunate to have that product come to Australia." Toyota has already started researching the car.

"We have started clinic-ing the vehicle in Australia from the clay-model renditions, and the reaction so far has been very, very positive," Mr Buttner says.

"We're pretty excited about that."Mr Buttner says that Australia will receive a significantly bolder-looking Kluger this time around.

Being derived from the 420L Camry, SUV buyers can expect the next Kluger to also offer a hybrid powerplant option.

But this will not arrive immediately, as Toyota will not offer this technology on the Kluger II abroad for some time after its release.

Nevertheless, with Toyota's stated aim of achieving a million hybrid sales annually by 2010, the petrol-electric Kluger cannot be too far away.

Toyota is expected to unveil the Kluger II at the Detroit motor show in January.

Apart from a new 100-Series LandCruiser due to appear next year, Toyota is also investigating an entry-level SUV to slot underneath the larger, third-generation RAV4 in Australia.

But the introduction of the Rush, the second-generation Daihatsu Terios model released late last year in Japan, has been ruled out, on the grounds that it is too small for Australia.

The Rush, released in Japan last year, is currently only offering a 1.3-litre four-cylinder petrol engine – which is deemed too small for our market.

A 2.0-litre four-cylinder unit would be the minimum size required for Australia.

"I've driven that vehicle in Japan with the product people late last year, and we don't feel that would be an appropriate model offering, and we are continuing to discuss what would be appropriate with TMC.

"If you look at that segmentation, there is certainly room for a sub-RAV4."The successor to the Rush has been mooted, but this vehicle is still at least five years away (its predecessor enjoyed an almost-unheard of – for a Japanese vehicle – nine-year run).

A more likely candidate is a still top-secret SUV crossover Toyota is believed to be developing at its European design studio in the south of France.

To be loosely based on the new Auris small car, this front and all-wheel drive wagon is about the same size as the recently revealed Nissan Qashqai.

It will offer a new range of turbo-diesel four-cylinder engines as well as the 1.8-litre four-cylinder petrol unit slated for the Auris, and may end up being manufactured in Britain, although Turkey may be a more financially viable option.

An Asian site – perhaps Toyota's Thailand production centre if not Japan – will probably supply Australia.

Toyota stays put
IN a week where the Australian International Motor Show in Sydney was virtually overshadowed by the ABC's claims that Mitsubishi had an exit strategy for its Adelaide operations, Toyota was ready with its own take on the matter:"We need four manufacturers in Australia," Toyota's chief of sales and marketing, David Buttner said.

"To me, it's very, very important to our economy, that Australia has a strong, healthy manufacturing industry. It's a growth industry.

"We still have a very strong local supplier base. And those local suppliers depend on that local production volume.

"If there's a thinning in that volume, then the amortisation of their fixed costs is over a lesser volume, which potentially can have a downstream impact on the cost of components for the rest of the industry.

"We want every manufacturer in this country to survive. We're not out to kill anybody.

"Even with the launch of our Aurion, we still see a very, very strong place for both the Commodore and Falcon. They've been icons in the market for years. We just want a fair share of that market, where we haven't really been able to compete.

On the subject of the Mitsubishi 380's chances of survival, Mr Buttner proceeded a little more carefully.

"I would like to think that they could sell that car to greater volumes," he said.

"In my purchasing days we would always look at what would happen in the market place if a competitor was to go, and it depends very much on the volume that that competitor is producing, as well as the number of components they are procuring from local suppliers.

"We have no plans to exit this country. Since 2000 we have spent a billion dollars on investment in our manufacturing facility in Altona. Since 2003 we have invested $450 million. Our plant is now absolutely state-of-the-art in the Toyota world.

"We are again aggressively looking for incremental markets in the world, so we can go further. We want more production capacity.

"We are competing against other Toyota plants in the world, and the way we can get that is by showing that we can build globally competitive quality and we can obtain globally competitive cost. "Our total focus is on growth in the marketplace, to create more employment, add to the manufacturing sector, help grow the economy and bring locally manufactured product to market that meets the needs of consumers."Currently Toyota's Australian production is at around 140,000 units a year.

"'140,000' is the journey we are on now," Mr Buttner said.

"We have the investment there, and we can ramp up as demand warrants over the next two years. If we look at five-year horizons... if we can get up to 160,000 to 170,000, I think that would be ideal for the manufacturing facility of the nature that we have."Camry hybrid update
TOYOTA is pushing for hybrid production in Australia for its current and next-generation Camry.

"Frankly we want to build a hybrid in Australia," Toyota sales and marketing chief executive David Buttner revealed to GoAuto last week.

Left: Toyota Camry hybrid.

"We believe it is the way forward. And we believe that market place each and every day is becoming keener, with there's more discussion about greenhouse gases, there's more discussion about the price of fuel.

"We've had a strong desire to want to build that vehicle, and we're pursuing it very, very strongly.

Asked if Toyota Australia would choose to take the Camry hybrid out of Thailand instead, Mr Buttner had this to say:"Our absolute preference is to locally manufacture it."Mr Buttner refused to set a timeframe for the hybrid, except to say that he would not "write it off" for the recently released 420L generation model.

Corolla wagon slips away
TOYOTA will not replace the current Corolla wagon in Australia.

Last month it unveiled the new-generation Fielder wagon, which is the Japanese-market version.

Supplies have virtually dried up for today's model that reintroduced the series to Australia in late 2001, after a 16-year hiatus.

According to Mr Buttner there are substitutes within his company's car range to snare wagon buyers.

"What we do now is that we can depend on some of our SUV offerings, like Kluger and RAV4, for people to migrate to (from the Corolla wagon)," Mr Buttner believes.

Meanwhile, he said the Corolla name would definitely be retained in Australia on both the tenth-generation sedan and hatchback variants due in around April 2007.

"We have a pretty strong brand image for Corolla in Australia," he said.

"There were discussions held, but we felt that this had such a strong brand image here in Australia.

"We didn't have the issues Toyota was facing in Europe, where Corolla wasn't a strong badge, and they really needed to introduce something that could continue to grow our market share in Europe, so the Auris name badge has been adapted for Europe.

"We started selling them here in 1967... and through to September 2006 we have sold 976,000, so we're hoping by the launch next year we would have sold a million Corollas in 40 years... (and that's cause for) a big celebration.

"And when you look at what's sold around the world, (the figure) is 30 million."Diesel not a done deal
TOYOTA Australia was not going to jump on the passenger-car diesel bandwagon just yet, according to sales and marketing supremo Mr David Buttner.

"I'm not writing it off at all. I'm being totally honest in saying that it is not totally in our firm product plans," he revealed at the Sydney show.

"But we continuously have a discussions, but our current product horizon is out to 2010, and there is nothing there," - quelling any speculation of a diesel-powered 2007 Corolla.