Your eyes aren’t fooling you: this is indeed an all-electric Toyota Innova. Unveiled as a concept at the Indonesian International Motor Show or IIMS, it’s a showcase of the Japanese carmaker’s commitment to electrification, even for developing markets such as ASEAN.
Developed by a team of Indonesian Toyota engineers, the Innova EV Concept swaps out its diesel engine for an electric motor and batteries. There’s not much in terms of specs, but that shouldn’t matter because the carmaker says it’s just a study vehicle. It is drivable though and passes Toyota’s own quality and safety assurance checks.
The Innova EV Concept features a closed-off grille (EVs don’t require as much cooling compared to internal combustion engines) and a bevy of blue detailing on the headlights, taillights, and emblems. The charging port is where the fuel filler cap was once before.
Inside, the Innova EV Concept gets a unique instrument cluster, though for some reason, there’s still a tachometer there. It also gets EV and battery-related info on the head unit, light-colored leather seats, and a push-button shifter replacing the traditional PRND one.
Toyota says the Innova was chosen to get the EV treatment simply because of its importance in the Indonesian market where 85 percent of its components are sourced locally there. By developing the Innova EV Concept, they are highlighting the importance they place on their suppliers and partners even in the age of electrification. They’re making sure to cooperate with the entire supply chain in order to create BEVs.
Toyota is planning to produce and market 10 electrified vehicles over the next five years for the Indonesian market.
Uly, if Toyota pushes through with electrifying the Innova (and possibly, switching it to D-NGA architecture) I am worried about our local production here since we have a non-existent EV infrastructure here and also, we might not have the means of enough local production of spare parts to produce EV or hybrid vehicles (I think, at least for now.)
ReplyDeleteUnless if there's something brewing within the Santa Rosa plant that's under wraps, i.e. upgrading the plant to allow Daihatsu D-NGA vehicles production/assembly. (But there were no announcements or news of Toyota investing for upgrading that plant in that regard.)
Excellent point. So far, no word on whether the Santa Rosa plant will be getting upgrades. Seems Toyota is leveraging its plants in Indonesia and Thailand to produce products for the ASEAN market.
DeleteI guess car manufacturers are now trying to save money now by consolidating manufa/assembly into "regional production hubs" now to standardize and unify parts supply and production to one place. At the end of the day, it's all business as usual.
DeleteConsidering that, I might not get surprised if Toyota scales down Santa Rosa production (should they ever not upgrade the plants) or else, worse of it, shut down the plant. (I'm not that shocked seriously. Philippines is already a dead horse in terms of local car production, the manufacturers don't see our country as profitable for them in long term. Doubly true, with the car electrification efforts.)
Best case Scenario is probably they're going to replace the Innova production here with a smaller platform (i.e. new avanza).
DeleteWith the current prices of the Innova becoming more of a hard sell vs the current crop of Chinese competitors and the probability of the next gen Vios also being based on Daihatsu D-NGA and not Toyota's TNGA-B(B segment platform that's currently used in in European/Japanese Yaris) it'll be really be hard to justify the production of the Innova here.
Did it electrify the fangs too? So ugly.
ReplyDelete