No doubt the Indian automobile market is flourishing like never before with more premium cars entering the same, there is still a strong demand for cars which are easy on the pockets of numerous first time buyers. Maruti Suzuki has always targeted such buyers who want value for money cars and in the coming years we will see more similar brands coming to our country, one of which is going to be Datsun.
When Nissan announced Datsun for India, shortly after that Volkswagen said that it will bring low cost vehicles to the country. As per the latest buzz, Volkswagen itself has announced that it considering selling budget cars for as little as 5,000 euros ($6,500) in emerging markets within two years.
“We need a cheap car for the emerging markets … that would cost between 5,000 and 10,000 euros,” the head of the works council, Bernd Osterloh, told the business daily ‘Handelsblatt’. He added that such a model could be ready in the next two years.
On one hand where the company wants to target new markets such as South East Asia and Africa, on the other the company wants to sell a range of budget products along the lines of Volkswagen Up in big markets like India and China. Volkswagen has also been testing Volkswagen Up in India.
“We do not need to reinvent the wheel for this,” he said, stressing that majority of components could be sourced from other markets. “Whether we would market this as a VW, we will have to see,” Osterloh added.
Looking at other steps that VW India is going to take, it has plans to reduce the cubic capacity of the 1.6 litre engine used in Vento and Polo, to 1.5 litres, eventually bringing down the existing excise duty by 3%. So the Vento 1.5 litre will attract an excise duty of 24% and not the existing 27%. In fact the company has a few more surprises which are yet to be disclosed.
So evidently we will see a series of products based on the Up platform including the hatch itself, a saloon or compact sedan based on Volkswagen Up and probably a compact SUV in the coming years. We will keep you posted on the latest updates, stay tuned to Car Blog India.
