By : RACHNA TYAGI
NEW DELHI :
At Skoda Auto Volkswagen India Media Night, organised in New Delhi, where Skoda displayed its VISION IN, a stunning concept for India, TURN OF SPEED, caught up with Gurpratap Boparai, Managing Director, Skoda Auto Volkswagen India Private Limited where he spoke about a growing nation's demand for better solutions, their Engineering Design Center, in Pune, and about how Skoda led VW Group will be a more significant player in the Auto industry in the coming years. Here are excerpts from the interview:
TOS: What’s it like with Skoda leading the entire VW game plan right now? What plans ahead?
GB: The idea of entrusting Skoda with leading this region was that Skoda with its design approach, engineering approach is suited to develop products for markets like India. Going forward we will bring new products, obviously. This is the initial part of our project, we start with four cars now…by now I mean, next year, and then we will clearly fill up the pipeline and have regular launches.
TOS: What is the pulse of the Indian customer feeling like?
GB: Indian customers are extremely demanding, and let me say they are fairly open to switching between brands. That we have seen with many new entrants, even though they were relative unknowns before they came to India, but they’ve done fairly well. So, it means that no established brand can take the consumer for granted. You have to really earn every car, every sale that you make and to earn that you have to, other than the basic car, you also have to have the whole package around it, the whole experience around the car, other than traditional virtues of a solid car to drive. You need a lot more in terms of connectivity features, a lot of automatic features, technological advancement. What was there 20 years ago in top end cars is now available in C segment cars and that makes it challenging. If you see how much the prices have increased of these cars over the last two years, it is not that much. They’ve become richer in content but the customer doesn’t pay that much more, so it is a challenge that you have to focus on… what the customer wants… and then make it available to the customer at as low cost as possible.
TOS: How would you describe the last 20 years of Skoda in India? What has the journey been like?
GB: The initial part of the journey was extremely positive. With the Octavia and later on the Superb as well as the Fabia, it was a high for the brand and then clearly a low level of localization on the Fabia meant that it was an extremely challenging product, financially, and then it had to be discontinued. A lit bit of the repositioning of the brand took place when VW entered the country, but I think Skoda retains a very large fan base, it still remains an aspirational brand, and I think that is extremely positive for us and augurs well for our future in India.
TOS: Car designers say that cars coming out of VW group, Skoda too, are a benchmark in terms of them being really premium. Can you tell us about what is your USP and the distinguishing factors that make your cars so special?
GB: There is the European design DNA, both Skoda and VW, have a very strong design DNA and all our future products will continue to have that same DNA. The customers appreciate the elegance, the relative timelessness of the design because these cars look really nice even ten years down the road that is what makes them popular with customers.
TOS: Tell us about your Engineering Design center in Pune?
GB: Since this project started and we were still hiring people, we are still in the initial phase of ramping up our capabilities but a lot of the project management work, a lot of the development work is happening in Pune. The styling obviously has happened in Europe but the style part needs to become a producible one, so you have to make an engineering drawing out of it, drawing no more… obviously it is a 3D model, in CAD or CAE, and all that work happens in Pune. A lot of the simulation work happens in Pune and then of course, we are trying to do more and more testing in India, not just at the vehicle level but also at the component level.
TOS: Is there any other place where the design work happens, besides Pune?
GB: Mlada Boleslav? No, not for Skoda. This is the only Engineering Design Center outside of the Czech Republic. VW, of course has many in Europe.
TOS: Any trends that you can predict, already people are shifting towards compact SUVs…
GB: I think that trend is clear but it is also due to a lack of interesting sedans. If we were to kickstart the sedan segment with our new products they will be really, really exciting cars.
TOS: When will that happen?
GB: Next year…towards the end of next year. Then of course, [coming back to the earlier question] the car is becoming more of a mobile phone on wheels. People work out of their cars, they optimize their journey time so you have to give them features that make it possible, and of course, as many features that allow the driver to mainly drive and focus on the road, and everything else that the car can do for you. Some driver assistance will also come in. Nobody wants to drive in bumper to bumper traffic, it is also repetitive driving, at low speeds, those driver aides can come quickly into these segments. I think they would make their way down to these segments definitely.
TOS: Has Skoda been a little slow in terms of getting technology onboard? Has it been a bit of a disadvantage for your cars?
GB: if you look at our mass segment cars, maybe what you’re saying is correct, but if you have a platform that was designed and conceived sometime back, engineering certain solutions into it becomes a little difficult and therefore now, we have a new platform that is going to be around for atleast 10-15 years and its protected for all such features and technologies.
