The new Toyota Vios is FINALLY coming to the PH as a hybrid, is it going to be called the Ativ?

Remember a few days back when Toyota Motor Thailand introduced the Yaris Ativ Hybrid? At the end of the article, we gave out a hunch that Toyota Motor Philippines was simply waiting for the electrified variant to come out before introducing it to the country, and as it turns out, that hunch is true.

Based on a teaser released a few moments ago on Toyota Motor Philippines’ Facebook page, it shows off the all-too-familiar headlight design of the all-new Vios/Yaris Ativ that most will probably be familiar with already.

Underneath it is a sentence that says “ACHIEVE THE ELECTRIFIED VISION”, with ATIV highlighted in blue. This means that the nameplate will be taking a similar approach with the Zenix, as it is called the Zenix in our country and does not outright replace the Innova below it.

This pretty much confirms that the Yaris Ativ (or possibly simply Ativ) will be imported instead of being built locally at the Santa Rosa plant, unlike the Vios of before, so one can expect this model to sit above the Vios XLE as the premium tier.

For those unfamiliar, the Yaris Ativ Hybrid has a 1.5-liter Atkinson cycle four-cylinder engine (2NR-VEX) mated to an electric motor, e-CVT, and a lithium-ion battery pack. Total combined power output is 111 horsepower, and it has a claimed fuel consumption of as high as 29.4km/L.

READ: The first-ever Toyota Vios Hybrid is unveiled in Thailand

If this sounds familiar to you, this is the same powertrain found in the Yaris Cross HEV, as it is also underpinned by the Daihatsu Global New Architecture (DNGA) platform.

Of course, this is just a teaser, but we can expect Toyota Motor Philippines to start trickling out news of the vehicle very, very soon. Are we excited? All we can say is it’s about damn time.

Photos from Toyota Motor Philippines and Toyota Motor Thailand