The Toyota Yaris is undoubtedly a key model for Toyota in Europe. Not only does it sit in the high-volume and ultra-competitive ‘supermini’ or B segment of the market as Toyota’s top seller in Europe, but the car is also made at a plant in France, emphasising Toyota’s growing European credentials. The first Yaris was a considerable European market success, so there is plenty riding on the follow-up model. just-auto deputy editor Graeme Roberts reports on the new car.
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Starter question for 10 points? Name the most popular Toyota in Europe.
You’d be forgiven for answering ‘Corolla’, while summoning up images of the boxy little sedan that set off from Japan in the late 1960s eventually to conquer markets world-wide, not all of them while wearing Toyota badges (it’s been sold by GM units as both a Geo and a Holden).
But you’d be wrong.
It is in fact the smaller B-segment Yaris ‘supermini’, as we call small but not citycar-tiny three and five-door hatchbacks over here, and the tiddler Toyota’s total is 1.2 million, and rising – 209,000 in the UK alone.
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By GlobalDataAnnual Europe-wide sales started at 143,717 in 1999 when the car was launched and hit 227,616 last year.
As they prepare to launch a new Generation Two car continent-wide from January, Toyota Motor Europe officials proudly point out that the model has not suffered from the usual post-mid-life sales slump – its numbers have continued to gain, albeit just a little, right up until the factories in Japan and Valenciennes, France, pushed their cookie-cutter buttons for Job Last.
French production began in 2001 and the plant also builds the 1.3-litre petrol engine and, more critical to European success, the 1.4-litre diesel that arrived the same year. Hence the lack of a sales tail-off. Valenciennes doesn’t build all Yaris models sold over here but has so far churned out about a half million.
As such industry figures always do at new model launches, chief engineer Kousuke Shibahara talked of building on the current model’s DNA – efficient packaging, build quality, economy but giving it next-class-up levels of perceived quality and a technology jazz-up while further reducing cost of ownership.
He’s done pretty well overall – the odd 1mpg dent in fuel consumption due to extra weight is offset by shorter servicing times.
What has emerged is an attractive little car with its key dimensions stretched 30-110mm, carry-over 1.3-petrol and 1.4-litre diesel engines and their manual or automated five-speed gearboxes, a new three-cylinder one-litre engine – made along with its gearbox in Poland – and an attractive new cabin.
In styling, it has an unusual kinked-down belt line with a tiny extra pane of glass inserted forward of the front door window drop panes but otherwise looks like a scaled-down Corolla five-door due in large part to its new ‘corporate’ Toyota nose – the old Yaris was more distinctive.
Inside, as other makers’ models have caught up with the trend towards central instruments, bright flashes of silver faux aluminium trim and heater-a/c knobs cascading down a silver centre console, the Yaris is also less distinctive than the old model and new gadgetry such as keyless entry and engine start/stop only plays catch-up rather than innovate.
The unusual centre-mounted instrument pod with its electro-luminescent digital speedo has survived, however, and there’s good detailing in the adjacent rear seatback top levers that either fold the backrest or slide the cushion forward to vary the amount of space allocated to bags or people. Six footers heads rub the headliner back here but there is plenty of room in front. Trim and plastics quality is not perhaps to Lexus level but is certainly improved compared with the old car.
The 1.3 petrol engine revs happily and needs to for rapid progress and we found the automated manual diesel also willing but quite noisy – with a bit of accelerator help it can be made to shift smoothly enough. Handling and ride seemed fine with an emphasis on comfort but we can make no objective comparisons as we have not driven the opposition.
There’s no sign of the 1.5-litre petrol engine the Australians get (and the Americans might), nor of its optional conventional four-speed automatic. Not Coming Here, say TME officials (though a sporty 1.8 model is due in ’06, just-auto has learned).
TME people argue that the MMT (multi-mode transmission, Toyota-speak for an automated manual) is more efficient and cheaper (though it’s still a £500 option in the UK) but these things always seem a compromise and we would opt for a conventional auto (or a VW-style DSG ‘box) any day.
This new Yaris is significant for two reasons: one it will now actually be called ‘Yaris’ in most export markets – instead of ‘Echo’ in countries like Australia and New Zealand – and it’s also going to the States.
True, the previous, and rather ugly, Echo saloon – called the Platz in Japan, where the Yaris is the Vitz, and now replaced by the newly launched Belta (are you keeping up here?) – was sold in the US but now they’re getting the hatchback. Instead. Toyota Japan has not yet decided if it will export the Belta but that’s your Echo sedan replacement if it does.
Toyota Motor Europe has no plans – officially – to replace the odd-looking but much loved (by mostly older age group owners) Yaris Verso mini-minivan which looked much like the result of Toyota asking a 20-something designer to re-pen the Renault 4 as a concept for the next Toyota show.
Unofficially, we were told that if there is a Versa owners revolt at the lack of a replacement, something could quickly be adapted for Europe from the Japanese domestic model line-up – such as the boxy little minivan exported to the US as the Scion Xb.
This isn’t too likely as ever tougher European emission laws with an emphasis on corporate CO2 output are forcing Toyota out of niche models – the Camry was axed a couple of years ago and we are soon to wave bye-bye also to the Celica, MR2 and Previa as it’s too expensive to re-engineer these relatively low-volume cars.
Moving right along then, Toyota Europe is targeting sales of 260,000 Yaris units a year (plus 100,000 of its new Czech-made Aygo PSA joint venture babies), with 38,000 of the Yaris output being sold in the UK in 2006.
They reckon on making 60% of sales to existing B-segment buyers (who also shop for GM’s Corsa, Fiat’s Punto, Ford’s Fiesta, Renault’s Clio, Nissan’s Micra, the Honda Jazz and the like) while ‘conquesting’ downsizing C-class buyers.
And then they went a bit coy when j-a asked what that’ll do for the UK-built C-class Corolla…
Achieving those Aygo/Yaris targets would give TME 7.5% of Europe’s small car market, too, so you can bet the pressure is on from Japan.
European specifications vary a bit by country but the UK is going again with with the ‘T’ designations introduced a year or two ago.
A one-litre ‘T2’ starting at £8,995 (there’ll be no price crossover with the smaller Aygo line) has just the essentials – driver and passenger airbags, electric front windows and remote central locking.
The T3 adds nine airbags, including a first-in-class knee ‘bag, CD player, leather rim steering wheel with remote audio controls, tilt-reach wheel adjuster and driver’s seat height adjust. T Spirit also has alloy wheels, front fog lamps, climate control and ‘smart entry’ – you leave the credit card-shaped ‘key’ in your pocket and just press buttons to lock and unlock the car or start it.
That’s the theory anyway, but one sample car wouldn’t let us in till we got the ‘key’ out and pushed its buttons. And don’t even ask about the sat-nav and Avenue Princesse Grace…
Toyota UK reckon the 1.3-litre petrol engine will account for half of sales, the one-litre 40% and the diesel 10%. They haven’t crunched numbers for a manual/MMT transmission split but say the top T3 trim took half the orders for the old model line followed by 31% for the T Sport and 17% for the T2.
So we’ll assume the new T Sport really is coming later next year then, shall we?
Graeme Roberts
