Eleven years after entering India, Swedish carmaker Volvo finally commenced local assembly at Volvo Trucks' Bangalore facility, late last year. Operations began with the XC90 SUV, and earlier this year, Volvo also started locally assembling the S90 sedan. Now, the company has confirmed that its mid-size SUV, the XC60, too, will soon be locally assembled.
At the launch of the XC40, Volvo Car India MD Charles Frump announced local assembly of the XC60 is set to begin in the second quarter of FY2019. Frump also went on to describe how strong sales for the XC60 have been so far in India.
"The new XC60 has been a tremendous success for us. It's our best-selling product line at the moment, making up almost 25 percent of our volumes", said Frump.
But just like with the 90-series cars, don't expect to see a price drop for the XC60 when local assembly commences. In a previous interview with Autocar India, Frump had explained the reason behind the same.
"In terms of pricing, our models have been priced very aggressively compared to the competition. We have made our investment by pricing our CBU models competitively, and would look at making up for it in the CKD phase."
The XC60 is powered by a 2.0-litre, four-cylinder diesel engine that produces 235hp and 480Nm of peak torque, and is mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission that sends power to all-four wheels. It also won the 2018 World Car of the Year award earlier this year.
The XC60 currently retails at Rs 57.90 lakh (ex-showroom, India).
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