Toyota and Daihatsu create small car company for emerging markets

Toyota and Daihatsu have announced that the two companies will create a new budget brand on 1 January 2017 for emerging markets.

The company, which is named the “Emerging-market Compact Car Company”, will only be internal, meaning that the two brands will not be spinning off a separate budget brand like Dacia is to Renault, but will instead produce a range of small, cheaper cars under the Daihatsu brand.

Read about Toyota's buyout of Daihatsu here

As the name suggests, the brand will deal with emerging Asian markets such as Indonesia and Thailand, while Toyota’s operations across mature markets such as the UK, USA and Japan will remain as they are. Wider emerging markets across the world will not be targeted by the move.

A Toyota spokesman confirmed that no new badge would be created from the deal, but the two companies would pool knowledge on small cars. He added that Daihatsu’s models would benefit from Toyota's global  TNGA platform. The first new cars to be made under the scheme will emerge within a few years.

The internal brand will be chaired by Daihatsu president Masanori Mitsui while Toyota’s managing officer Shinya Kotera will be the company’s president. Daihatsu will have responsibility of product and quality planning, while the product and business planning division will be shared across the two firms.

This is the first announcement concerning Daihatsu since the car maker was announced to have been acquired by Toyota earlier this year. Toyota said “The new internal company's objective is to establish work processes untethered by conventional practices and rules and to introduce competitive ever-better cars based on Daihatsu's approach to manufacturing affordable, high-quality products.”