Group VW’s Skoda is still open to partnerships for their ongoing low-cost car project aimed at emerging markets despite talks with Tata Motors having collapsed.
Skoda was commissioned by VW to lead the low-cost car project in cooperation with Tata but the two companies ended their short-lived partnership as they failed to hit their cost targets.
Skoda continues working on the India-focused project, trying to figure out how to make VW’s MQB A0 platform cheap enough to form the basis of such a vehicle but it also remains on the lookout for potential partners.
“We are open to partnerships provided they yield the desired technical and economic synergies,” Skoda CEO Bernhard Maier said to Reuters at the sidelines of the Frankfurt auto show.
Maier also said that Skoda has held talks with a group of local suppliers in order to have a ready a low-cost model that complies with the more stringent emissions and safety requirements due to take effect in India in 2020.
But he also added that the MQB A0 platform hasn’t still become the definitive basis for a low-cost car aimed at price-sensitive India. “It’s clear that without radical localization and the related cost advantages, we will be unable to turn the MQB A0 platform into a competitive tool in India,” he said.
Such a model could also be launched in South America and the Middle East while Group VW is also developing another budget car with its Chinese joint-venture partners, set to hit the market in 2019.
Note: Skoda Citigo pictured
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