[navin]

Originally Posted by bigman

At last a decent player making cars in India. Expect excellent quality from VW.

I for one sure hope their A.S.S is better than their sister company (Skoda). A car is more than just 4 wheels, an engine, and a body. Skoda makes good cars but their sales numbers and repuation have taken a beating thanks to their poor A.S.S record.

[dhrishikesh]

Its really great that Polo is being launched in India, most importantly @ 4.35 lacs as it will be in the command of all Indian middle class car owners.
Any info about the engine & most important, safety features ?

[McLaren Rulez]

Well Polo at 4.3l seems too good to be true. I doubt if it'll be worth it. They'll throw in a rotten engine, weedy tires, barebone interiors, crappily tuned suspension and, god forbid, black bumpers. I doubt if it'll even have the normal VW build at this price. Bottom line VW don't want to ruin their premium brand feel; its most probably going to be in the 8 lakh region where, of course, you will get a stunning car.

[shankar.balan]

VW's entry level pricing strategy is a numbers game - they clearly want the maximum number of budget wary + brand conscious consumers to get into their brand by providing easy access.

Their primary intent would be that once these consumers get used to the quality standards and "solid european feel" that VW provides, they would not migrate to some other brands.

however, if one is looking for performance, looks and features, one would be absolutely forced to buy the higher end variants.

take the case of Grande Punto - the entry level one, while cheap, is a poor beast. in my opinion the only variant worth considering would be the absolute top end one - and even that, appears to have a wheezy and gut-less engine. Not everyone buys a car only for its looks - some would also wish to have a top class engine (after all the engine is the car's heart)!

I am reasonably sure this same thing is going to happen in the case of the Skoda Yeti when it gets launched here next year - more's the pity. The well appointed ones with good engines will be priced very dearly and I suppose if one just wants a piece of the brand then one could buy the base variant.

It is only Hyundai and other Korean manufacturers who seem to want to provide all sorts of fancy features at a relatively affordable price.

What Hyundai lacks in terms of "brand cachet" they try and make up by offering "product features".

[rowhun]

umm, wasn't the 4.35lac price article in Business Standard from April 2008?
from what i know it'll be launched at 6-7lacs bracket.

[anekho]

4.35 L sounds great but I pray to god it's not the 1.2 crackpot engine from the skoda fabia ... 1.2L TSI would be awesome

[Gilead]

How will the VW dealerships handle the kind of volumes that a 4.35 lac car will generate? There are hardly any at the moment. Maybe they might piggyback on Skoda dealerships. :(

[theEnd]

All across the world people buy VW cars for their build quality, interiors, powerful and sophisticated engines and high levels of equipment.

If VW lose the plot in India and try to sell a cheap, low-quality car, there's really no point in launching the Polo. In India we already have plenty of options for those who want to compromise on quality or power so that they can have a cheap/spacious car. They might get a few thousand additional sales in the next five years, but when (and not if) the Indian car buying public becomes more discerning and starts demanding high-quality cars, VW wont be able to capitalize due to a tarnished brand-image.

And this 4.35L article is clearly a joke! A decently spec'd Polo should cost at least twice that much OTR when it is launched.

[AyAn!]

The Polo is more likely to be priced in the Swift/i20 territory.
But first they really need to expand their dealer and service network.
Hope it sells well and gets the success it deserves!

[MileCruncher]

Polo at 4.35 Lacs is clearly impossible.

Jetta here is available at 15 lac range, so Golf should be in the 12 lac range at the minimum. In that case Polo cannot be lesser than 8 Lacs and may be the Fox at 5 Lacs.

This is obviously considering economies of scale and high level of localisation.

Another question is will there be takers for Polo and Fox at those price ranges?

[hillram]

Its true that Polo is coming with 4 lakh odd price.Seems unbelievable but true from a VW representative i recently met.
But as someone pointed out..be prepared for lot of compromises.

[Gilead]

Originally Posted by hillram

Its true that Polo is coming with 4 lakh odd price.Seems unbelievable but true from a VW representative i recently met.
But as someone pointed out..be prepared for lot of compromises.

Any idea if there will be some options for someone who is willing to pay 7-8 lacs for a no-compromise hot hatch?

[jassi]

what i was hoping atleast VW would launch a true hot hatch
at under 5 lacs, i can't imagine what junk they might dish out. Lets hope for the best!

[akj53]

I agree with theEnd. VW should maintain its quality, brand positioning and all other virtues for which the brand is known world wide.

A poor / cheap product if introduced, will ruin the brand image which may be very very difficult to redeem later on (ask FIAT). It will also not guarantee any big sales as the market is flooded with too many established players like Maruti, Hyundai and Tata in that segment and very few customers will try to experiment with an unknown (at least in India) brand.

VW should maintain its premium quality and technology standards and position the car accordingly. There are plenty of customers with money, taste and knowledge to appreciate a good product and they will buy in decent volumes. However VW should learn from the mistakes of FABIA and must avoid wheezy / underpowered engines and atrocious and costly service. It must also keep a very tight check on its dealers and errant ones should be punished immediately.

[diffsoft]

I don't think VW will compromise on build quality to bring down price. There are a couple of things they seem to be doing to make it more affordable:

1. Indigenise to up to 70%
2. Have a lot of parts common between the Polo Hatch and the Polo Sedan thus bringing down costs.

Let us see how it goes, but VW can't be accused for not trying