Having already performed awesomely in Europe last year, Volkswagen T-Roc will comes to India by the end of this year. Volkswagen’s T-Roc is a compact sized SUV and the company will bring the SUV to India as a completely built unit.
The T-Roc has already been performing good in the Europe and now the company is all set to bring it to India. What is to be noted here is that Volkswagen will not homologate the vehicle for India, rather it will use the provision to import 2,500 units of a car without the need to do so. Although the cars will be imported from the right-hand drive markets of Europe only as the vehicles imported under this rule still have to follow the locals laws and bear certification from the markets where they are being imported from.
As per the reports on the internet, the German carmaker may carry some of the burden of the import duty while bringing the car to India and price it around the Rs. 17-20 lakh mark. However, despite the brand carrying some of the import duty burden the aforementioned price tag will still make the T-Roc very expensive in the segment considering the vehicle’s size. Given the rumored price point at which the company will offer the compact SUV in India, it will lock horns with the top models of Tata Harrier and be squarely pitted against the Jeep Compass and Hyundai Tucson in the Indian market. However, given the route that the brand is taking to bring the compact SUV to India, it does not hope to pitch the T-Roc as a mass market compact SUV from the outset.
One way to look at this move is that the German brand is trying to give the customers a taste of its T-Roc to the Indian public and give them a fair idea as to what the upcoming T-Cross will be like. For those who are unaware, Volkswagen will launch the T-Cross compact SUV in India in a couple of years and the T-Cross will be considerably cheaper than the upcoming T-Roc. Therefore, by bringing in limited number of T-Roc units, the German brand may be going for a brand building exercise here and trying to setup the market for the T-Cross when it launches. The upcoming Volkswagen T-Cross will be built on the Indian version of the MQB platform (MQB A0) and will be built especially for developing markets such as India. T-Cross is expected to launch in the Indian market in 2021, although Volkswagen is yet to begin the road tests of their upcoming affordable compact SUV.
Talking of the upcoming T-Roc, its international version gets the option of 3 turbocharged petrol engines. The first one being the 1L engine rated for 113 Bhp and 200 Nm and comes with a 6 speed manual transmission as standard. The second option is a 1.5L engine rated for 148 Bhp and 250 Nm and this comes with the option of a 6 speed manual or a 7 speed twin clutch automatic gearbox. Finally the most powerful 2L engine is rated for 187 Bhp and 320 Nm and comes with 7-speed twin clutch DSG automatic transmission as standard. There are chances that only one option will make it to India. However, the German automaker will surely fill the upcoming T-Roc with a lot of features to justify the premium price it will command upon launch.