Volvo mulling local assembly of vehicles

Volvo Auto India is currently mulling the prospect of setting up an assembly plant in India. The Swedish luxury car maker is currently working on a long-term strategy to increase its presence in the Indian luxury car market. 

Tomas Ernberg, MD of Volvo India in an interview with the Economic Times said the luxury car market in India is dominated by the ‘Big German Three’ all of who had large and well setup distribution networks as well as local assembly plants given them the advantage of pricing their cars much lower. Volvo on the other hand is bringing its car via the CBU route and in the long term the setting up of a local assembly plant means it too, in its words, will be able to pass on the benefits to its customers as well as increase its market share. 

However, He did not specify any location of timeframe by where and when the plant will be setup and only said that the parent company would soon take a call in this regard. In terms of new models, Volvo will soon be launching the V40 Cross Country for the Indian market. 

The Cross Country is a toughened up version of the V40 hatchback with 40mm additional ground clearance. The looks of the car are also altered a bit to make it look a bit more rugged. The crossover gets bigger alloy-wheels with chunky tyres, body claddings, roof rails, skid plate and blackened rear view mirrors.

The European spec versions of the crossover are available with four diesel engine options in the range of 1.6-litres to 2.5-litres with varying outputs. However, in India we are expecting just the 1.6-litre petrol and 2.0-litre diesel engine options. The V40 Cross Country will go up againts vehicles like the Audi Q3 and the recently facelifted BMW X1.    

For the year 2013, Volvo aims to sell 1200 cars and increase its market share in the 30,000 units a year luxury segment from one per cent to four per cent. 

Source: ET

Know more about the V40 Cross Country