VW plan for India for next 2-3 years

Powerdrift seems to have scored some information from VW India about their plans for the next couple of years.

*Spoiler alert* it's not much to be fair.

Nothing much for next 2-3 years to be honest. Hope they bring in ADAS for Virtus and Taigun by 2025. Without an EV they will find the going forward tough. Volkswagen has a 2 model portfolio for practical purposes. Don't know whether that's a sustainable model.

Saw this one. No new information, rather just confirmation of the rumours around GTI products being untrue.

If they are making enough profit on VW 2.0 products through domestic sales and exports along with badge engineering, then hopefully this strategy will work. I guess the whole point of quitting the low margin sub10L category was to ensure that they can survive with lower volumes.

I guess adding new Tiguan, Tayron + EV should help margins. And then Skoda can contribute with Superb and revised Octavia.

In my humble view, addressing the existing quirks in their India 2.0 line should take precedence before introducing fresh products or rolling out incremental feature updates, such as special editions adorned with stickers.

Over two years into the market, some of the initial troubles still persist.

There is this sort of news going around.

More Auto Exits

According to the article top 6 brands take 92% of the numbers. The article talks about consolidation of the market into 8 brands in all in future.

This is common denominator in all those brands. Indian buyers are unlikely to opt for a brand for long term ownership (and resale value) if company doesn’t seem committed to cater indian market with sufficient products in portfolio and sufficient ASS venues across the country. Trust is a 2 way street. Perception of stability of brand plays a big role in sustaining and expanding market share.

As much as I follow VW, their India policy is clear.

Make cars for Indian market along with using Indian plants for exports. This has worked well till now. They have survived all odds against Japanese and Korean competitors while Americans and French have struggled.

Slowly with SUV’s they have started building up their market share and it seems they are content with their growth. On the other hand Virtus has been able to replace Vento with similar numbers.

I do not see much action for next few years till India is ready with infrastructure for EV’s. VW must be having a clear plans ahead for India once we are ready with better infra for EV’s.

During the VW Brand conference, Ashish Gupta did mention that they would be exploring the Golf GTI. Perhaps, it will end up being expensive hence the Polo GTi may be under consideration. The statement was noncommittal.