Car maker Toyota comes up with a 3-year free service for taxis plan
Applies to newly sold Ses’fikiles
TOYOTA South Africa Motors (Tsam), which was targeted by the taxi industry in May during the commencement of rolling protest action to highlight the industry’s exclusion from its own value chain, has increased its support for the taxi industry.
The vehicle manufacturer yesterday announced the introduction of a complimentary three-year/60 000km service plan for all new Ses’fikile taxis sold from the beginning of this month.
Taxi industry sources claimed this was the first of two proposed initiatives by Tsam to support the industry.
The sources said the second initiative was still being discussed and had not yet been approved.
Production at Tsam’s manufacturing plant in Prospecton in Durban was brought to a halt in May, resulting in Toyota losing almost 600 units of production when hundreds of taxi operators blockaded the plant in a protest organised by a splinter group within the taxi industry.
The protest was suspended after a day when Tsam senior management reached agreement to discuss the complaints of taxi operators.
The Mass Taxi Industry Protest Action Committee, the splinter group which organised the protest, had earlier told Business Report exclusively that it would be targeting vehicle manufacturers, banks, insurance and fuel companies and government entities by blockading their premises.
A memorandum handed to Tsam executives by the protesters contained a list of demands, including that Tsam must stop actively supporting and encouraging extremely bad trading practices.
Tsam said yesterday that with the service plan, taxi owners and operators were assured of free safety inspections and comprehensive services with genuine Toyota parts for the taxi’s first 60 000km.
Andrew Kirby, the president and chief executive of Tsam, said yesterday that the service plan was intended to support the industry’s viability and ensure the safety of taxi commuters.
“The complimentary service plan will give all taxi owners and operators the opportunity to keep their vehicles in perfect running condition for longer and will support their efforts to operate profitable and sustainable businesses,” he said.
Kirby added that as the largest supplier of taxis to the industry, Toyota had also taken a number of steps to contain the price inflation of the Ses’fikile given the deteriorating value of the rand and high local inflation rate.
The taxi protest group had claimed that the price of the Ses’fikile had increased by much more than South Africa’s overall inflation rate.
Kirby said that when the Ses’fikile was introduced in 2007, for example, it was the first fully compliant taxi under the government’s Taxi Recapitalisation Plan and Toyota since then had upgraded the vehicle seating, introduced more cost-effective, locally-sourced components, kept the vehicle compliant to all regulatory requirements and subsidised Ses’fikile service/repair parts to the value of R5 million a year. In addition, Toyota had invested more than R550m to date in the Quantum plant at its production facility at Prospecton, he said.
Production of the Quantum was first localised in 2012 through local assembly through a semi knocked down facility, which in 2015 was upgraded to a completely knocked down manufacturing process.
Kirby said a further R11m was invested in upskilling staff working specifically at the Quantum plant and Tsam had subsequently started with an aggressive localisation plan for the majority of parts and components, with the aim of mitigating the weakening rand/ yen exchange rate.