Mr. Tomas Ernberg, Volvo Auto India’s Managing Director recently stated the company’s plan to launch two ‘green concept’ cars by 2015.
Mr. Ernberg told Business Standard that both its concept cars – ‘You’ (sedan) and ‘Universe’ (S-class) would come equipped with online communication technologies. He added, “These cars will have online features like live streaming of videos and technologies wherein cars talk to each other,” though he did not divulge the details.
He added that Volvo viewed India as one of the fastest growing markets for premium cars and as the prospects for growth looked very good, the company was thus eyeing to capture 10 per cent market share in the segment by 2020 by when the domestic premium car market would reach 1,50,000 units a year. The company is aiming to corner 2 per cent share of the premium car market for the current year 2011, which is estimated to touch 20,000-25,000.
Volvo had launched its XC90 and XC60 sports utility vehicles (SUVs) in India last year (2010). Responding to a query whether the company will manufacture its SUVs in India, Mr. Ernberg responded, “The sole objective of making cars locally is to bring down costs,” and as the SUVs were already competitively priced, thus, the company had no plans to set up a manufacturing plant in India. The SUVs are currently manufactured in Sweden and Belgium.
