Volvo XC40 Production Begins; India Launch By Mid 2018

The first XC40 has rolled out of Volvo’s Belgium plant, while production in China is expected to start in May 2018

Volvo has officially started production of the XC40 compact SUV at its Ghent plant in Belgium and deliveries are expected to commence from early 2018. The company has officially announced that it already has about 13,000 orders for the XC40 in its kitty.

The XC40 will make its way into the Indian market by mid 2018 but it’s still unclear from which plant Volvo will import the compact SUV for India. The production of the XC40 is expected to begin in Volvo’s China plant by May 2018.

The XC40 is the first Volvo to be based on the company’s second modular platform after the SPA (Scalable Product Architecture), the CMA (Compact Modular Architecture) platform. Volvo has revealed that the next generation of its other 40 series cars (V40 and V40 Cross Country) will also be built on this platform. It’s highly unlikely that Volvo will reserve this platform for just three cars, and that opens the doors for us to speculate that Volvo might soon bring the S40 nameplate back to rival the likes of the upcoming Mercedes-Benz A-Class sedan, the BMW 1 Series sedan, and the Audi A3.

Competition for the Volvo XC40, on the other hand, will come from the German trio in the form of the Audi Q3, Mercedes-Benz GLA and the BMW X1. Volvo has revealed a € 30,400 (Rs 23.3 lakh) sticker price for the XC40 for the Belgian market.