Toyota has discontinued the Etios Liva Sportivo in both petrol and diesel guises while Renault has cut down certain variants of the Scala.
While the four-wheeler market may be at an all time high when it comes to competition, there are certain cars which just refuse to move from the showrooom floors. The Toyota Etios is a nice selling car, why? Because it is frugal and reliable and a hot favourite with cabbies. However, the Japanese automaker then launched a performance-oriented version of the Etios Liva hatchback and called it the Liva Sportivo. The Liva Sportivo petrol came with a 1.5-litre engine while the diesel variant just got decals and accessories.
The Liva Sportiva hasn’t been selling much and hence Toyota has now discontinued this trim completely. Since the petrol Sportivo came with a 1.5-litre engine, Toyota couldn’t classify it as a small car and hence the vehicle had higher taxes and ended up slightly more expensive than its immediate rivals. Hence, the Etios Liva is now offered with only the 1.2-litre petrol engine and the 1.4-litre diesel engine. Both the engines get four variants each. Airbags are standard on each trim while every diesel trim also gets ABS and EBD.
The Renault Scala is another underrated car in India. The vehicle is quite a nice package but it has been selling in some really low numbers and hence the French automaker has now discontinued certain variants of the car. All the automatic variants have been phased out and also the base RxE variant has been discontinued. The Scala is now available in the RxL petrol and RxZ and RxL diesel variants. The vehicle is a rebadged version of the Nissan Sunny, which too doesn’t really sell well.
The Renault Scala petrol comes with a 1.5-litre engine that pumps out 98 HP of power and 138 Nm of torque and has an ARAI-claimed fuel efficiency of 16.95 km/l. The Scala diesel comes with a 1.5-litre dCi K9K oil-burner churning out 85 HP of power and 200 Nm of torque with a mileage of 21.64 km/l. The sedan competes with the likes of the Honda City, Maruti Ciaz, Hyundai Verna, Volkswagen Vento, Skoda Rapid, Fiat Linea and Nissan Sunny.
