Toyota's new RAV4 SUV is being launched in a competitive automobile market in T&T, Nicholas Mc Donald, sales and marketing manager, Toyota, said yesterday.
"As you can see on the roads today, competition is fierce in this segment. New models have been coming out frequently and aggressively, each trying to claim their piece of the sweet pie that has been developing in T&T," McDonald said at the launch of the RAV4 on Thursday evening at Toyota's showroom in Barataria.
The compact SUV, which has a starting price of $268,000 on the local market, made its worldwide debut in 2012 in Los Angeles, United States, and is sold in 150 countries.
The new generation RAV4 is available in two-wheel drive with a 2.0-litre engine and the four-wheel drive with a 2.5-litre engine. Although Toyota is a reliable brand, it was considered too "boring" by some customers and this led the engineering team to start research to develop a new model, McDonald said.
"We are proud to say that the brand new Toyota not only re-took the number one spot in global sales for 2012 but is also the only auto brand in the top ten global brands. It won the most awards in JD Power and Associates Quality Survey over the two other brands combined. The RAV4 was chosen as the Intel-Choice vehicle of the year," he said.
