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Photo: Thomas Geiger
The first impression:
Kodiaq, Karoq, Kamiq – Kushaq.
If you know one, you know them all.
With a length of 4.22 meters, the Indian Skoda SUV is two centimeters shorter than the smallest model for Europe, but follows the same design line.
In India, the car is driving at the upper end of the mass market.
That's what the manufacturer says:
The times when you could sell discarded models from Europe to emerging countries like India are over, says Jan Repa.
He is Skoda's head of marketing for India and one of the fathers of the Kushaq, which he praises as a "true Indian".
"We have combined European technology and our local values with the wishes and requirements of the subcontinent and thus constructed a very Indian car from the European kit."
That was not always so.
For years, the Volkswagen Group tried its luck in India with discontinued models and standardized cheap goods - and failed.
Then it should direct a cooperation with Suzuki, which also failed.
A good four years ago, the group transferred responsibility for the region to the subsidiary brand Skoda – including an allegedly high three-digit million budget.
With this, Repa and his colleagues had two models each developed for Skoda and VW, which “for the first time are properly tailored to the needs of Indian customers”.
Apparently they were hit well.
Because since the models Taigun and Virtus at VW, the SUV Kushaq at Skoda and the technically identical sedan Slavia are at the start, things have been going uphill.
Especially for Skoda: the brand doubled its registration figures twice in a row.
With more than 45,000 sales so far this year, India is now the third largest market for the Czech Volkswagen subsidiary, says Petr Sloc, Skoda's boss in India.
In addition, the “India 2.0” models from the Pune plant are now being exported to almost 50 other markets.
However, they are not marketed in Germany.
India is the new “place to be” for the auto industry, says Piyush Arora, the Indian governor of the VW Group.
The subcontinent has what it takes to become a second China, he says.
And in times when the West is taking a somewhat more critical distance from Beijing, the development could even accelerate.
In any case, the statistics report a clear need to catch up: while in Germany there are now more than 500 cars per 1000 inhabitants, in India there are between 15 and 35, depending on the source. At the same time, the prosperity of the 1.4 billion inhabitants is growing at an above-average rate, says Arora.
A middle class of several hundred million people suddenly had disposable income and started investing.
"The Indians are satisfying their pent-up demand with a big appetite," says Jan Burgard from the Munich strategy consultant Berylls.
He expects 3.6 million new registrations this year - about a million more than are predicted for Germany.
Next year it should be four million, at the latest in the second half of the decade India will become the third largest car market in the world, estimates Burgard.
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We noticed this:
While you get lost in German traffic with a small SUV, the Kushaq stands out from the crowd in India.
Yes, in Delhi and Mumbai the streets look like in Düsseldorf or Munich, only more crowded.
But in the country, for example in Dehradun at the foot of the Himalayas, the car cuts a really good figure.
After all, he is mostly surrounded by countless mopeds with entire families in the saddle, rickshaws, overloaded intercity buses and rickety small cars, most of which come from Suzuki Maruti, from Tata or from Korea.
The high seating position helps to keep an overview.
And with an output of 150 hp, the motorization, which is comparatively lavish for the Indian market, in combination with the dual-clutch transmission, helps to quickly escape from tight situations.
In this way, the few gaps in heavy traffic can be used.
The top speed of 190 km/h is irrelevant.
In any case, more than 100 km/h are almost never allowed anywhere, and even an average of 40 km/h drives you head over heels.
That's why you can't plan big jumps on Indian roads.
If the navigation shows a driving time of 90 minutes for 30 kilometers, this is not a software error, but an almost optimistic estimate.
The many stop-and-go also has advantages, just like the forced breaks in front of the holy cows, which apparently would rather lick the dirt off the road than eat the grass next door: you have time to look at the interior - and you quickly find out , that the red pencil can apparently also be applied in such a way that it still looks chic and feels good.
Pretty surfaces, accurate fits, classy chrome inlays - even the ID.3 from Wolfsburg, which is three times as expensive, looks cheap compared to the supposedly cheap car from India.
You have to know that:
The Skoda Kushaq is an offshoot of the MQB-A0 group kit, on which cars like the VW Polo or the Skoda Fabia are based.
It is identical to the VW Taigun and comes in tandem with the small sedan Slavia, which has the twin Virtus at VW.
Prices in India start at 1.159 million rupees or a good 13,000 euros and are about a third below the similarly sized European model Kamiq.
This is made possible by the low labor costs in the country, explains product strategist Repa, and by maximum localization.
Instead of importing components into the country, 95 percent of the components are produced by local suppliers and are therefore also correspondingly cheaper.
And yes, Skoda has also worked on a few standards: The factory in Pune does not have to adhere to the internal height otherwise prescribed throughout the group, as a few additional fans can also provide ventilation.
The roof does not have to be designed for the load of three meters of snow, as is usually the case.
And the Kushaq's windshield wipers don't have to work in minus 15 degrees, either, since frost almost never occurs in most of the country.
Other components, on the other hand, are designed to be more stable than ours.
About the chassis - because of the ankle-high bumps and the many potholes.
And the horn, which is in constant use here, was designed to last seven times longer.
There are no compromises in terms of equipment.
On the contrary: Indian customers, for example, demand seat ventilation even in this class, and Skoda has also programmed its own infotainment system on the unusually large touchscreen for the nation of one billion smartphones.
No expense was spared when it came to safety either.
Repa: "Because India has much higher standards here than Europe and, for example, is already demanding equipment such as seat belt reminders on the rear seats from the New Year, which Brussels will only be asking for much later." are proud.
"No other car from India did as well as the Kushaq in the official crash test."
We won't forget that:
The small shell that Skoda milled into the dashboard especially for the Kushaq and Slavia.
The reason: Many Indians like to place their Ganesha statue there as a talisman.
The figure doesn't look pretty and is a dust catcher, but if people put it in the car anyway, at least it should stand securely.
Thomas Geiger is a freelance author and was supported in his research by Skoda. Reporting is independent of this.
