Volkswagen plans all-new platform for India

Volkswagen is looking at strengthening its position in the Indian market, as the competition heats up, by the day. The company plans to develop a new platform for its future products in India.

The new platform will be based on the much acclaimed MQB platform and will also borrow components from the older PQ platform, on which the current Polo and Vento are based.

Thus, it plans on building a relatively low cost architecture that will help make cars for emerging markets like India, China and Brazil.

 The new platform is internally called ‘Emerging Market MQB  – A0’.

The platform will be the base for a number of cars from the VW family, including Audi and Skoda. This common platform will help VW to manufacture products in the shortest possible time without major investment and thereby, be competitive in the marketplace.

The first product to launched on this platform will be the next generation Vento, followed by Polo. Skoda Fabia and Rapid will also shift to the new platform, alongwith other compact SUVs that the company plans to bring. As per ETAuto,  the company is yet to recover the investment on its existing platform, and bringing the modular MQB platform would call for a massive investment in India. Hence, the ideal solution is to look at a mix of both, even as it uses exports to recover investment in India.

Volkswagen has recently overtaken General Motors to become the largest car manufacturer in the world. Lately, a few car manufacturers like General Motors, Toyota and Fiat have been known to be working to newer platforms for emerging markets including India and Volkswagen definitely would not want to lose out on an opportunity.