VW crosses 4L car mark from Pune

German automobile giant has invested Rs 3,800 crore at the Chakan facility

Volkswagen, Europe’s largest and the world’s third largest passenger car maker by sales, on Monday rolled out its 4,00,000th car from the assembly line at its manufacturing facility at Chakan, near Pune, after going commercial five years ago.

Since the start of production at Volkswagen Pune Plant in March 2009, more than four lakh cars have been produced for the domestic as well as 32 export markets.

The German automobile giant has invested Rs 3,800 crore at the 575-acre Chakan facility and employs over 3,500 staff.

The 4,00,000th manufactured car from the plant was a Polo highline for the domestic market equipped with the brand new 1.5-litre diesel engine.

“With this milestone, we have firmly established our operations. We will continue to focus on productivity and further localisation to cater to the demand from our markets," Mahesh Kodumudi, president and managing director at Volkswagen India, said.

At present, the cars produced at the Pune plant include Volkswagen Polo and Vento, in both, left and right hand drive version and Skoda Rapid.

Despite being five years in operation in India, Volkswagen has not captured more than 2.1 per cent of the market share because it lacks a diverse mass-market product range.

The German manufacturer is absent in the rapidly growing entry-level hatchback and the compact sedan segment which has severely affected its volumes.

Sales at Volkswagen India fell 24 per cent to 52,525 cars for the fiscal year that ended on March 31, ranking it sixth among 14 carmakers in the country by market share, according to industry data.

While Volkswagen is the market leader in China, it is struggling in India to have a strong foothold against stiff competition from compact carmakers such as Maruti Suzuki, India’s largest car maker, Hyundai Motor, the second biggest car producer by sales Toyota Kirloskar Motors, selling mid-market offerings.

According to analysts small cars account for 50 per cent of all cars sold in India and remain mostly unaffected by the slow sales trend affecting all other car sales in the world’s sixth largest car market.

The small car segment is made up of hatchbacks that cost less than Rs 4 lakh and consists of Maruti Suzuki's Alto range and WagonR, Hyundai's Eon and i10, and Datsun's GO.

Kodumudi said the company is planning fresh investment of Rs 1,500 crore over the next six year to increase local content level in cars to 90 per cent from about 65-70 per cent at present by building engines and gearboxes locally.

It also plans to introduce new models, he said.

source:-http://www.mydigitalfc.com.