Volkswagen eyes budget cars for emerging markets 'in two years'

FRANKFURT: Europe's biggest carmaker, Volkswagen, said on Thursday it was considering selling " budget cars" for as little as 5,000 euros ($6,500) in emerging markets "within two years".

"We need a cheap car for the emerging markets ... that would cost between 5,000 and 10,000 euros," the head of the works council representing the firm's employees, Bernd Osterloh, told the business daily Handelsblatt.

He added he could imagine "such a model being ready in two years."

The firm should "attack new markets like South-East Asia or Africa more aggressively," he stressed.

He said that in big markets like India and China, the firm might be able to offer a range of low-cost vehicles along the lines of the "VW Up", a small, reasonably priced hatchback.

"We do not need to reinvent the wheel for this," he said, stressing that parts from other cars could be used to construct the new range.

"Whether we would market this as a VW, we will have to see," added Osterloh.

Handelsblatt reported that an expert group would present to the VW board by the end of the year a scheme to enter the low-cost car market, one of the few segments of the automobile industry in which the manufacturer is not active.