The hybrid technology of Toyota will be adopted by Suzuki in Europe

In today’s globalised industry, where technology advances by leaps and bounds, car manufacturers are turning to synergies in operational activities, something we have been seeing for years, for example in the alliance between Renault, Nissan and Mercedes-Benz. To these major alliances we must add one more, an alliance that has been taking shape for a little over a year and that will finally see Toyota and Suzuki join forces.

Thanks to the initial agreement that Toyota and Suzuki signed on 6 February 2017, the two Japanese companies will leverage each other’s strengths to achieve more global growth, all under a roadmap that will become a reality sooner rather than later. Broadly speaking, Toyota will take advantage of Suzuki’s strong pull in emerging markets to introduce its models, while Suzuki will mainly benefit from Toyota’s successful hybrid technology.

In this way, on the one hand we have Toyota, which seeks to become an even more global brand by entering emerging and very interesting markets such as India, where Suzuki, operating through Maruti Suzuki India, takes a large share of the pie. In India alone, last year no fewer than 3,393,705 vehicles were sold, with Suzuki accounting for 51% of market share. The latter will therefore cede to Toyota the platforms of the Suzuki Ciaz and Ertiga, the Vitara Brezza compact SUV will be manufactured in India by Toyota, and the two will jointly develop a new MPV for the C segment.

On the other hand, and still in India, Toyota will help Suzuki with the dissemination and sale of hybrid vehicles, benefiting from Toyota’s hybrid technology, which includes systems, engines and batteries for those models. But South Asia will not be the only area of joint influence for the two brands, since on the African continent Toyota will benefit from the supply of the Baleno, Vitara Brezza, Ciaz and Ertiga models.

In Europe, where this alliance will directly affect us, Toyota will supply the platforms of the RAV4 and Corolla Wagon to Suzuki, which will adapt them in certain details to its own taste so that they are not a copy of Toyota’s models. Thanks to this, Toyota will benefit from new Suzuki engines aimed at compact vehicles to be manufactured at Toyota’s plant in Poland, also with the close collaboration of Denso, a Toyota subsidiary. Finally, at a global level, and this will also affect us, the models of Suzuki will benefit from Toyota’s Hybrid System currently fitted to the models running on European roads.