Toyota and Suzuki have announced an expansion of their partnership. Under the Suzuki brand, hybrid versions of the RAV4 and Corolla will be sold. Europe will be the key market. The cars will be produced at the Toyota plant in Derbyshire, UK.
For the first time, the upcoming partnership between the two Japanese brands was announced back in 2017, but then the companies were stingy with details. In 2018, it became known that “green” cars, that is, hybrids and electric vehicles, will be the main topic of joint activities.
Now more concrete steps have finally been announced. Toyota will supply its partner with hybrid powertrains for vehicles based on the RAV4 crossover and Corolla station wagon. The start of production is scheduled for the end of 2020.
Another step is the start of production of new Suzuki engines for compact models at the Polish Toyota plant.
Finally, the third point of joint work will be the creation of new hybrid models for the Indian market. Suzuki will supply Toyota with two compact cars based on the Ciaz and Ertiga models for the Indian market and four models for the African market. In addition to this, the two companies will jointly develop a C-class crossover for India.
Obviously, the union of the two companies is designed to use the strengths of each of them: Toyota will provide hybrids and production sites in Europe, and Suzuki, in turn, will open the door to the growing Indian market for a partner.
At the end of 2018, Maruti Suzuki, a subsidiary of Suzuki, took a dominant position in India: the company's share in the passenger car market increased to 51%. Hyundai is in second place, far behind (16.2%). In total, Maruti Suzuki sold 1,731,450 vehicles last year. With a score of 151,480 vehicles, Toyota is only in sixth place.
Suzuki will produce cars based on Toyota and vice versa
