Toyota Plans First R&D Centre in Bengaluru by 2027: Report 

Toyota Motor Corporation is establishing its first R&D centre in India via its local unit, sources in the know informed Bloomberg. This India research centre will be Toyota's third R&D location in APAC, outside Japan, following similar investments in Thailand and China, the newswire noted. While it will cater to the Indian market in the initially, it could evolve into a global R&D hub, similar to Mercedes Benz's Bengaluru centre that has 9000 employees. 

The new R&D facility will commence operations with a strength of 2000 people in Bengaluru, near Toyota Kirloskar Motor's current facility in Bidadi, one of the sources told the newswire on condition of anonymity. The team strength will increase to around 1000 engineers by 2027, as per the source. 

Spokespersons of Toyota Kirloskar Motor refused to offer comments to the newswire. Bloomberg could not elicit a timely response from Toyota. 

The previous year, Toyota reorganised India as the centre of its operations across Middle East, East Asia and the Oceania region. It has also made a string of priority investments to mark India as a global centre for clean and green technologies, the newswire noted.

Sources noted that Toyota is closely studying R&D operations of Suzuki's Indian unit Rohtak, one of the country's largest auto engineering hubs with roughly 3000 engineers.

Toyota had earlier mulled setting up an R&D centre in the country in 2010. Now it is doubling down on its partnership with Suzuki to amalgamate R&D and product development, the newswire noted. 

Take for instance, Toyota's upcoming Urban Cruiser EV- a rebranded version of Suzuki's first EV- the e-Vitara. 

The model, slated to be manufactured at Suzuki Motor Gujarat from 2025, marks the first step the two Japanese automakers will take in India, as they aim to break into the Indian and global EV markets together, the newswire noted.