Volkswagen has confirmed that it will be launching its new budget brand in 2018. The new brand will initially be launched only in the Chinese market with other markets like India, Brazil and Russia being taken into consideration, but for a later stage. The company also confirmed that the brand will offer three models at the time of launch and will become the group’s 13th brand.
The new models under VW’s budget brand are expected to be based on VW's older-generation platforms to keep costs low and are being developed jointly by VW and its Chinese partners.
In an interview with Bild, VW Group CEO Martin Winterkorn said that the company planned to price the new models between 8,000 to 10,000 euros when launched in China (Rs 5.60 lakh to Rs 7.07 lakh approximately).
The introduction of a budget brand has become increasingly important for Volkswagen with European Safety and Emission norms driving up the prices of cars in Europe.
Volkswagen, however, is wary of offering old technology in our market. The three-cylinder Polo hasn’t been well received here. The reason being, most saw the three-cylinder unit as an old engine. The same can be said for the Renault Logan, the Toyota Etios and Liva. VW India director Michael Mayer in face has said that while the company was focusing on managing cost issues here, it was not likely to build a cheap car for the country.
For now, VW has plans to launch four new models in the Indian market in the next two years, following the launch of the facelifted VW Vento. The company has announced its plans to launch the new Beetle by 2015-end, the Polo compact sedan and new Passat early-2016, and the yet-to-be-revealed next-gen Tiguan SUV sometime early 2017.