Why Volkswagen's New South America SUV Is Important For India

In a move that might be more relevant to India than almost all Volkswagen global decisions in the past, the South American arm of Volkswagen has announced a brand new compact SUV that will be built locally and sold across the continent. So why is it important? Well, this new compact SUV will be built on a new localised version or variant of the MQB platform that underpins all new Volkswagen Group cars all the way from the Polo to the Tiguan. The MQB platform is an expensive platform though in its current form but since the South American market is as price sensitive as the Indian one, a cheaper, more locally sourced and adapted platform is exactly what a market like India needs too. Incidentally, this locally sourced version of the MQB platform could possibly be the replacement for the platform that was being conceived by VW and Tata Motors before plans were shelved over cost concerns.

Volkswagen Compact SUV on MQB Platform

The new compact SUV will be built alongside a whole range of new cars that will be introduced in the South American market by the year 2020. This SUV will be sold alongside the upcoming 7 seat version of the Volkswagen Tiguan, another compact SUV from Volkswagen (rebadged version of the Skoda Karoq) and even possibly the brand new T-ROC. These new cars will be developed and built independently in Argentina where Volkswagen has decided to invest $653 Million in its Pachecco plant.

With these cars set to be introduced in the market by the year 2020, we wonder if Volkswagen India could also use their expertise both in terms of research and development and in terms of a manufacturing base to have a two pronged approach to make the MQB platform as cheap as possible to be viable for cars like the new Polo to be launched in India. A joint effort could also mean using India as a second global manufacturing base for cars based on this cheaper MQB platform to service Asian and African markets.