Japanese automotive manufacturer, Toyota is planning to launch an automatic variant for its entire lineup cars in India by 2016. The Toyota cars that already run on automatic transmission include Toyota Fortuner, Corolla Altis, Land Cruiser and Camry. Just a few entry level cars manufactured by Toyota lack in automatic transmission.
After the launch of entry level automatic transmission cars like Maruti Suzuki Celerio, Maruti Alto K10, a huge drift has been noticed in the car market with consumers wanting more of such cars leading to huge demand and less supply. Owing to this scenario, Toyota is taking a good move by introducing automatic transmission in its cars. The Toyota Liva, Etios and Innova will be available with automatic transmission soon by 2016. Toyota Etios and Liva currently do not seem to be doing good business with sales thus, automatic versions of Etios and Liva are expected to bring more business in the form of sales to Toyota.
What is Automatic Transmission?
It was earlier reported that around 30 per cent of the cars will be equipped with AMT (Automatic Manual Transmission) by 2020 in India, currently this figure is just 1-2 percent. In manual cars, it is the driver who is responsible for changing the gears with the use of cluth pedal and gear stick while in automatic cars, it is the car who takes the decision and changes the gears, giving the driver a whole new experience of driving.
Pros and Cons of Automatic Transmission
Pros
- It gives a smooth and comfortable drive since the driver doesn’t need to change the gears again and again.
- It is beneficial in modern cities where drivers face huge traffics on congested roads.
Cons
- Automatic cars cost higher than the manual cars.
- Automatic cars are quite expensive and complicated to repair as compared to manual cars.
- Manual cars are considered more fuel efficient than automatic cars.
The Indian car market is now dominated by automatic transmission cars. The Toyota cars with their automatic avatar will face severe competition with already existing automatic cars. The Toyota Liva automatic will compete with Maruti Celerio, Hyundai i10 and Maruti Ritz in the hatchback category. Toyota Etios automatic which falls in sedan category will face competition with Maruti Zest, Honda Amaze, Maruti Dzire and Nissan Sunny. while Toyota Innova automatic MPV is expected to compete with Mahindra Xylo.
Source- The Economic Times
Also Read- Maruti Suzuki Celerio Automatic
