Japanese motorcycle maker Yamaha will be entering the four-wheeler market by launching small and efficient cars in Europe by 2019.
With the growing population and income levels, the demand for cars has risen worldwide in the past decade. But the road network and the width of the roads hasn’t increased as much in the same period. This has led to a big problem in many cities across the world. The rise in fuel prices has resulted in people opting for more efficient vehicles. This has led the manufacturers to design and develop small and efficient vehicles to tackle both the issues together. Many manufacturers have come up with or are coming with smaller cars to reduce congestion in busy streets of different cities.
In order to tap the growing market for small two-seater cars, Yamaha has decided to get into this segment by launching such vehicles in Europe by the year 2019. They will be targeting the environmentally-conscious drivers and the ones who want a zippy little car to breeze through city traffic. The company has been thinking about the four-wheeler market since the past few years and it even displayed a 1000cc petrol engined concept car at the 2013 Tokyo Motor Show. The production car would be either powered by a 1000cc petrol engine which would be highly fuel efficient or an electric motor which would be emissions-free. Yamaha plans to build car plants in Europe to start selling the cars in the region by 2019.
Yamaha believes that they would be able to do good business in Europe because small cars are already popular in the region. They are also studying opportunities in other emerging markets such as India and Brazil and might launch four-wheelers in such countries at a later stage. The Japanese giant will be making and supplying its own engines for the European market cars and would outsource some other parts production in order to keep cost low. Most would associate the name Yamaha only with bikes but the fact is that it has worked with Toyota on car engine development since mid-sixties and has supplied three million engines to Toyota over time. It has also supplied engines to Volvo.
Source – FinancialExpress.com