Monday, May 23, 2016
By Kriti Gupta
Volvo to make strong presence in luxurious car segment
Swedish car maker Volvo is speculating to make its strong presence in luxurious car segment of Indian car market by launching fleet of new compact car in India from next financial year. The expected models to debut in Indian car market will be SUV codenamed Concept 40.1 and a sedan codenamed 40.2. The car maker had unveiled that 40 series of compact car last week at it’s headquarter located in Gothenburg, Sweden. The upcoming vehicle in series will compete against Audi Q3 and A3, BMW X1, and Mercedes Benz GLA.
The upcoming cars being launched by car maker will be offered with starting price of Rs. 26 lakh and onwards. In the words of Mr. Peter Mertens, Senior Vice-President, R&D, Volvo "Entry SUVs are extremely important for a market like India. We are seeing a lot of growth coming in from the segment in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China ) countries. Also, in the Americas, the trend has become apparent." The production of both these vehicles is reported to begin in 2017 and will make their entrance in Indian car market within six to eight months after their launch in global market.
The car maker will also bring a hatchback under flagship of 40 series along with proposed SUV and sedan under the same series. Reports reveal that Swedish car maker is going to develop its vehicles on common module architecture (CMA) platform. Commenting on CMA platform Mr. Hakan Samuelsson, chief executive Volvo said, "The platform has been developed ground up for electrification. We can develop plug-in hybrids as well as fullelectric vehicles with a range of 350 km on it,". Moving ahead he also added that Volvo plans to bring almost one million electronic vehicles on international roads by 2015. In India the car maker is going to bring hybrid trim of Volvo XC 90 in couple of next months.
