Audi India may have made foray in the Indian luxury segment after Mercedes or BMW, yet the brand with the 4 rings is the biggest luxury auto manufacturer in the nation at the moment.
At this time, the company locally makes the Q7, Q5, A4 as well as A6 at its Aurangabad based plant (the third quarter’s local assembly will start shortly) via the CKD path. Now there are discussions regarding Audi making a few of its cars completely in the Indian market.
Audi presently assembles cars like the A6, A4, Q7 and Q5, at its Aurangabad based plant. The third quarter is likely to join this list shortly. As per reports, the brand has carried out a research to build their vehicles at VW’s Chakan plant in the state of Maharashtra.
The research is said to be at a premature phase and a concluding result could be taken by the coming 6-12 month period.
The first few Made-in-India Audis would be the yet to be rolled out A3 Sedan and the entry level Q3 SUV. Audi hopes to price the A3 Sedan below INR 25 lakhs, without locally manufacturing it. So you can imagine the price point of the A3 Sedan if it were to be made entirely in India! Audi A3 Sedan is planned for next year’s launch and created in Gyor, Hungary.
With the aim to validate the local manufacturing, the company requires to have around single model in its range contributing to around 10,000 vehicle units on an annual basis.
To give you a mention, the company eyes to sell 10,800 vehicles (all models put together) for the existing year. Consequently, having their committed manufacturing facility would prove unworkable.
But, given that the A3 Sedan is based on the very supple VW MQB structural design, a stage we will be witnessed on future Volkswagen’s and Skoda’s like the new generation VW Polo/Vento and the forthcoming Skoda Octavia, some components and constituents could be shared.
