Thursday, November 5, 2009

Volvo Cars India becomes Volvo Auto India

Volvo Cars India becomes Volvo Auto India

The wholly-owned subsidiary of Swedish car manufacturer Volvo Cars has rechristened its firm’s name to Volvo Auto India Private Limited in India and has also severed its ties with Ford India. It has been learnt that the Volvo Cars India has resorted to a name change as its parent co (Volvo Cars) is on the verge of being taken over from Ford Motor Company by Chinese auto giant Geely. Volvo Cars India, which had had made its presence in the Indian luxury car space since March’07 year as a subsidiary of Ford India, has yet not reached the 300-unit sales mark.

It may be recalled that Ford Motor Company, on 28th October’09, has announced that a consortium led by Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. Ltd. is its preferred bidder in the ongoing discussions concerning the possible sale of Volvo Car Corporation. In 1999, Ford had acquired Volvo Cars from Volvo AB as part of its Premier Automotive Group, which then included Aston Martin, Jaguar and Land Rover.

Even after delinking its business from Ford, VCI has stated that it is quite upbeat about the country's operations and would also be intruding its global models in a phased manner. Of late, it has been learnt from an exclusive article by PTI that VCI is weighing the possibility of launching its compact executive sedan S60 in the country by next year after it’s reintroduced in the European market. It has also been learnt that Volvo India is keen to set up a car assembly unit in India, if its annual numbers touch 2,000 units. After established its presence in seven cities; Delhi, Mumbai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Cochin, Chennai and Pune currently in India, the company is now chalking out robust strategies to enhance its dealership base to Goa, Kolkata, Bangalore and Ahmedabad and Coimbatore.

Currently Volvo offers the following choice to the customers- S80 a luxury sedan and luxury seven-seater SUV XC90. Both are available in 3 variants of D5 Diesel; 4.4L V8 Petrol & 3.2L Petrol. There are 2 variants of the XC90 also available – XC90 R-Design; XC90 Ocean Race Edition. Volvo will also launch a diesel variant of the S80 next month. Apart from S60, the company is also proposing to bring in compact crossover SUV XC60, which is currently undergoing road testing it at the International Centre for Automotive Technology (iCAT). Even though the C70-coupe is also on the company’s drawing board, it will be available on an individual basis according to demand, reported 'The Hindusbusinessline' exclusively.

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