Volvo V90 Cross Country to soon be assembled in India

Volvo’s high-end station wagon – the V90 Cross Country – will soon be assembled in India. The Swedish car maker, now owned by Chinese automaker Geely, has already commenced car assembly in India. The XC90 luxury SUV – based on the Scalable Platform Architecture (SPA) was the first car that Volvo assembled in India.

The company runs a CKD assembly facility that’s attached to its commercial vehicle manufacturing unit at Hosakote, near Bangalore. This facility has been outfitted to assemble cars based on the SPA platform. The V90 Cross Country, the S90 luxury sedan and the XC60 luxury SUV will be the new cars that Volvo will assemble at this facility.

Charles Frump, MD, Volvo Auto India, confirmed this development, with the following statement,

We will start with cars in our SPA platform to assemble locally — S90, V90 Cross Country, and XC60. That is clearly our strategy to broaden the number of cars that are built locally.

The V90 Cross Country station wagon that is sold in India features a 2 liter turbocharged diesel engine with a peak power output of 225 Bhp and a peak torque output of 480 Nm. The engine is mated to an 8-speed automatic transmission. The Cross Country version of the V90 gets an all-wheel drive system from Borg-Warner as standard fitment. It has a high ground clearance of 210mm, and a water wading depth of 300mm. The high-riding stationwagon is priced at Rs. 60 lakhs, ex-showroom Mumbai.

Local assembly will allow Volvo to price its cars more competitively as the tax rate for CKD assembled cars is much lower than those for completely built unit (CBU) imports. Competitive pricing is likely to give the Swedish brand a sales boost, and this will in turn result in an increase in profits. All other competitors such as Audi, BMW, Jaguar, Land Rover and Mercedes Benz already have CKD assembly units in India, and Volvo is the latest automaker to join this group.

Via ETAuto