Toyota Etios Cross vs Mahindra Verito Vibe CS

For the last one month, the Mahindra Verito Vibe has been my companion for the daily torture test and commute of 52 km from home to office and back. At the end of it, with a very heavy heart, the hatchback has been returned to Mahindra (fortunately) in one piece and here is our closing report.

It’s a crossover… It’s a hatchback… No, we don’t know! And since we don’t have a name for this segment of cars, we are going to begin by christening them Hatchovers! The Etios Cross is the latest entrant to this India-specific segment, where the cars look rugged and bulky like crossovers, but offer pretty much the same utility as that of a hatchback. It may be a unique distinction for the Indian automotive market, but not something that we should be proud of. What exactly is the purpose of the hatchover then? What made manufacturers like Volkswagen, Skoda and Toyota enter this segment? Is it just a passing fad or will we see more vehicles of this kind in future? We spend some time with the Etios Cross to get to the bottom of this riddle.

Our first long term from Mahindra is the Verito Vibe and although it has already completed over a month with us, an unfortunate incident had kept it away from action for close to three weeks. The Vibe is now back on duty for the monsoons, accompanying us mainly on the photo shoots.