Toyota poised to axe Avensis and push Hybrids?

[FROSTYBALLS]

Article in today's Autocar (13th April 2016) claims that Toyota has decided to kill off the Avensis at the end of the current car's lifecycle. Customers are looking at premium Badge models, people carriers and crossovers in preference to D-sector saloons. The introduction of the C-HR and Rav4 in hybrid forms may help address this move away from D-sector saloons. Toyota has also pitched the Prius in its last two generations as a D-sector hybrid, and may look to import the Corolla (which has the same wheelbase and is a similar size to the Avensis) into the UK for those customers who want a saloon.

[Konrad C]

What Toyota need to do is drop the 1.6 Valvematic engine in the Auris and use the Avensis Valvematic engine and transmission, especially in the Touring sport version. That won't happen either as Toyota have gone the small engine turbo route. My reasoning is that the 1.6 version looks inefficient compared to the 1.8.

The Prius need to be redesigned to a little too.