Toyota Camry Hybrid’s price slashed

Toyota’s largest selling hybrid vehicle in India, the Camry Hybrid, is now available at an even lower price. The prices for this luxury sedan have been slashed by Rs 2.3 lakh, following the VAT (Value Added Tax) reduction on electric and hybrid vehicles from 12.5 percent to 5 percent. As we know, hybrid and electric vehicles fall under government’s FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles in India) scheme, which gives them this special exemption. Sadly, the scheme is only valid in the Delhi-NCR region.

With this, the Camry Hybrid now costs Rs 30.9 lakh, which is quite comparable to Rs 30.23 lakh of the non-hybrid car (prices, ex-showroom, New-Delhi). However, before this price cut was brought into effect ninety percent of Camry sales in India came via the hybrid variant, and this price cut might just make the Camry petrol obsolete in the country in the near future. And rightfully so, since the Camry Hybrid has a tremendous positive mileage gap compared to the non-hybrid version. The Camry Hybrid gives a mileage of about 19 kmpl (highway) while the petrol-only variant gives about 8 kmpl. Yeah, it is that big a difference.

Figurewise, Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKM) sold 419 units of the hybrid Camry, over 44 units of the petrol-only variant in the first quarter of 2016.

Under the hood, the Camry Hybrid is powered by the same 2.5-litre four cylinder petrol motor which is used to power the petrol-only variant. The difference, however, lies in the addition of a permanent magnet synchronous motor with a 6.5 Ah nickel-metal hybrid battery pack. The cumulative power from these two sums up to 205PS and the torque stands at 213Nm. Transmission duties are done by an E-CVT automatic.