Volkswagen to widen Indian model range

EXCLUSIVE!

Volkswagen is looking to strengthen its Indian line-up with new launches across price points. Speaking to Autocar India at the launch of the updated Polo, Michael Mayer, Director, Volkswagen Passenger Car India said, “As a brand with a premium and aspirational element, we need to be present when people want to move up from basic inexpensive cars to higher quality, more spacious and more performance-oriented cars. I’m carefully watching the segments developing in India. I’d like to use the full breadth of the VW brand that is currently focused only on two products (Polo and Vento)”

While Mayer did not speak about any possibility of the launch of VW’s upcoming budget brand in India, he did admit that the German carmaker is ‘seriously investigating’ opportunities in the compact sedan and compact SUV segments to drive up numbers. In fact, Autocar India was the first to break the story that VW is developing a sub-4 metre Vento.

VW had shown the India-bound Taigun sub-4m SUV at the Auto Expo which garnered a good response but VW is struggling with the cost structure of this compact SUV to price it competitively. Hence, the Taigun has still not got the green light but a compact SUV on the existing Polo’s PQ25 platform is more of a possibility.

These cars apart, Mayer also hinted at VW’s plans to bring in more premium cars. “As India is growing, the number of people who can spend above Rs 20 lakh on a car is also growing. We see room to get new customers to the VW brand who are currently constrained to a few luxury brands.” he said. Autocar India has learnt the iconic Golf is being evaluated for India as are the Scirocco and Beetle. VW has already shown the next-gen Passat that is headed to India as well.

Despite the potentially low sales volumes, the thinking behind getting these cars in is to have a presence in the market before it expands, an approach that has reaped huge benefits for VW in the Chinese car market.

NIKHIL BHATIA