Renault Kwid’s platform will spawn compact sedan and crossover

Carlos Ghosn, chairman of Renault-Nissan alliance, has confirmed that the Renault Kwid’s platform (CMF-A) will spawn a compact sedan as well as a crossover. He made this announcement during a media interaction at the 2016 New York Auto Show. This platform, the CMF-A (Common Module family-A) has been designed keeping in mind multiple body styles or top hats as they are colloquially called. This means the underpinnings will remain the same while the body styles can be changed.  He said that the alliance was looking at expanding its reach through cost competitiveness and so would price its vehicles accordingly. In this regard, we can expect that the compact sedan will be positioned below the current lineup. This means it will rival the likes of yet-to-be-launched Tata Kite 5 and Chevrolet Essentia. The Kwid-based crossover is expected to be a sub four-metre vehicle. It will be positioned below the current crop like the Maruti Suzuki Vitara Brezza, Ford EcoSport and the Mahindra TUV300 in terms of equipment and pricing.  The first car off this platform was the Renault Kwid. It has been a major success for the alliance with over 80,000 bookings since it was launched last year.