Volkswagen T-Roc and Tiguan AllSpace to be made in India

Under India 2.0 strategy of the Volkswagen Group, manufacturers like Skoda and Volkswagen will launch a slew of vehicles in the coming times. Volkswagen has already launched the all-new Tiguan AllSpace and T-Roc earlier this year but both the SUVs are Completely Built Units (CBU), which is why they are priced so high in the market. Well, soon, Volkswagen may start to assemble these two cars in India and bring down the prices drastically.

The all-new T-Roc which is available in a single variant in the Indian market and is priced at Rs 19.99 lakhs is almost sold out in the country. Even the Tiguan AllSpace is quite popular in the market. Both the cars utilise the no homologation requirement for CBU vehicles selling under 2,500 units per year currently. However, looking at the popularity of both cars, the 2,500 unit limit can soon get exhausted.

Steffen Knapp, Director, Volkswagen India said to carandbike in an interview,

“The idea obviously is to manufacture locally if the vehicle (T-Roc) is a success in India. It seems to be from what we see at the moment as in we see a lot of pull. One opportunity is importing parts and components and assembling it, I don’t think we’ll fully build the unit in India (as in assembling it completely in India) like the Taigun which will be a local assembly. But local manufacturing in our Aurangabad plant is interesting for us to look at.”

Volkswagen is currently studying the sales of both the cars to asses the situation and will make a decision on assembling of the cars in India at a later date. The Volkswagen T-Roc’s first shipment is almost sold out in India while the Tiguan AllSpace is about 50% sold in the market.

Both the cars are based on the Volkswagen MQB-A0 platform that currently underpins most of the Volkswagen Group’s cars in the international market. In India, the group is working on the India-specific MQB-A0-IN platform that will be a low-cost derivative and will underpin a lot of upcoming cars from Volkswagen and Skoda in India in the coming future.

The Volkswagen Tiguan AllSpace is a seven-seater SUV that takes on the likes of Toyota Fortuner, Ford Endeavour and Skoda Kodiaq in the Indian market. The T-Roc is a mid-size SUV that competes directly with the likes of Jeep Compass and the Hyundai Tucson in the market. Due to the lockdown, car sales have been hit in India. However, it will be interesting to see how the sales pick up in the coming months.