Toyota planning for its own sub-brand

Toyota

As predicted on China Car Times earlier this year, 2011 is aiming to be the Year of the Sub-Brand, over the course of the past six months we have seen announcements from GM, Honda, and Nissan regarding sub-brands and now it seems that Toyota are planning to join the speculation along with Ford.

Ford and Chang’an announced that they were working on ‘something’ involving low cost cars, but further information was not made available. According to Chinese media reports, Toyota are planning to have their own sub-brand out by 2012 at the earliest and will be working with Guangzhou-Toyota on the project. According to Feng Xing Ya, the operating director of Guangzhou-Toyota, Toyota have had a plan to introduce their own brand of cars into China for the past two years but have decided that they can no longer put the plan off.

A 2012 introduction is likely, as Honda are already busy planning to recycle their last generation Honda City under the Everus brand for budget minded consumers, if Honda are doing something then it is likely that Toyota will follow.

Ash

Ash came to China at 18 on a whim and never left. Some 10 years later he collected a degree and a family along the way and now focuses his time on watching the Chinese car industry develop. He has witnessed the market change from being minor backyard market in to the world's biggest and most important market for all car manufacturers. You can contact or connect with him via Linkedin by clicking the 'Website' link.