More on the new 2013 Toyota Vios and the problem with Toyota....

As stated earlier, the new 2013 Toyota Vios will be launched soon. It looks good doesn't it? It has a sportier air to it than previously. But we over here have people travelling South-East Asia regularly and we can safely report that if you sit in this new 2013 model, it is actually exactly the same as sitting in the 2010, 2012, 2008 or even 2009 model of the Vios.

You see, when one of our group of motorheads was over in Jakarta, Indonesia recently he had the chance to sit in one of these new Toyota Vios. If  you end up in Jakarta you'd notice that most of the taxis there are Vios. The latest Vios is already in service there as of of those taxis that you can actually take to and from the airport or from any hotel you stay.



What we can say is that there is ABSOLUTELY NO DIFFERENCE IN THE RIDE AND COMFORT LEVELS of the Toyota Vios from 2013 or the Toyota Vios from the previous generation and to an extent, the one before that.

What this means is that the suit is new but the innards is still the same vehicle through and through. You may get a new dashboard with the meters in the correct place (in front of the driver) but everything else is the same. You may as well buy the one from 2007 and buy any Toyota dashboard that has the meter cluster in front of the driver, add some bumpers and wallah, you have the latest Vios. Check out the 2002-2007 Vios below, if you change the bumpers to the one on the latest model and change the dashboard it WOULD BECOME THE LATEST MODEL.

The problem with Toyota is that progress is very evolutionary. But its progress is glacial. This means that if the Vios were a human being, it would take about 10 years to complete a bachelor's degree instead of the usual 3 to 4 years. If it were a snail, a snail could evolve faster.

This is the same with the Toyota Camry I drove recently. Last year I drove the earlier 2.4v Camry for a whole week and this year I drove one in Australia for a week too. The only improvement was the fact that it had one more forward gear, 100 more cc's from 2.4 to 2.5liters, slightly better handling that most people would not notice and it got uglier. This is the problem with Toyota. Changes take place like how Charles Darwin would have liked it....over a period of 100,000 years. Yes the car is reliable and of a certain quality, but God dammit, sometimes one should be a little more forward thinking that be efficient and extremely profitable. Some sacrifice should be made.

I will report more on Toyota's efficiency later.