Toyota Etios Cross vs Skoda Fabia

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.

The Global Warming issue has forced all the automotive manufactures to go green. Most of them are spending billions of dollars on either making electric or hybrid vehicles or designing compact and efficient engines. This has helped technologies like direct fuel injection and turbochargers to evolve even further. The Volkswagen Group has being doing no different. The new Superb was launched with smaller turbocharged petrol and diesel engines (ofcourse, they introduced the 3.6V6 later on for the extreme enthusiasts), and now the Fabia’s old 1.4TDI engine is replaced by the new 1.2TDI.

Skoda had showcased its Fabia at the 2008 Auto Expo held in New Delhi and the Czech automaker went on to launch the hatchback in India later that year. The Skoda Fabia, back then was the most expensive hatchback. Now with increase in competition, Skoda had to drop the prices of the Fabia starting last year. Has Skoda succeeded in doing so in its new Fabia? Dig deeper to get your answers.