INTERVIEW:
Volkswagen: bringing back the past for budget range
Volkswagen to start all-new brand by 2019 and it will first launch in China
The saga of Volkswagen’s on-again, off-again budget brand is officially on again. And, according to the brand’s head of development, it’s never been "off again" at all, in spite of reports insisting on its demise. Frank Welsch has revealed the budget brand will be launched in China within two years, starting with a small sedan and adding compact and larger SUVs before 2021. He insists reports of the death of the programme mixed a cancelled Skoda-Tata programme for an Indian budget car with Volkswagen’s own gestating budget brand. "The thing that you might think of is this Tata-Skoda story," Welsch says. "This is India and this is not a budget car for China. This is different and I cannot comment what Skoda is doing." He first admitted to the budget brand programme at the launch of the Golf 7.5 in 2017, then reiterated its scheduling before the Frankfurt Motor Show. "The only thing that is not changing in the past six months is the budget car. There is no change, no change in timing ...
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