VW's Budget Brand Given The Green Light For China Debut


Volkswagen have been looking at launching a budget brand in emerging markets since 2012, and after prolonged talks, an official decision has been finally taken.

Confirmed to AutoExpress by the company's bosses, the sub-brand will launch in China at first in two years' time and after a settling-in period, it will probably become available in India, Brazil and Mexico as well.

Volkswagen's local joint-venture partner, FAW, will give a helping hand in the development and production of the first cars which are expected to be a small saloon and a midsized SUV. Both vehicles are said to make use of the PQ chassis architecture of the Golf Mk6, along with some components coming from the MQB platform.

"It won't be off MQB. The brand will use some MQB components, but not the MQB architecture. If you compare this to Dacia and what it is doing, that's more like it", said the VW development chief, Frank Welsch.

The official confirmed a 'budget car', which is currently in development, and talked about an SUV. The former, which is expected to cost less than 70,000 RMB (around $10k), will come exclusively with a front-wheel drive layout whereas the latter will use an all-wheel drive system.

For now, VW has no intentions of bringing their still unnamed sub-brand outside emerging markets, but Renault had a similar strategy in their early years with Dacia, and ended up launching it in Central and Western European countries after all.

Note: VW Lavida and Gran Lavida pictured





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