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Tata Motors’ Senior GM who helped develop Nexon, Harrier H5X – Heads to Skoda India

Gorden Calder, formerly from Tata Motors has been appointed as the new Vice President and Head of Engineering Center at Skoda Auto India. Calder will be in-charge of a new product portfolio on MQB-AO-IN platform.

This new engineering center in India is a part of the India 2.0 project wherein products for Skoda and Volkswagen will be developed. Skoda and Volkswagen will be investing Rs 8,000 crores in India as part of the Project India 2.0. This will give employment to upto 4,500 in the next 2-3 years.

Image – Mr Ravi Jayavijayan

Speaking about Calder, he has been working with Tata Motors since 2012 and has sufficient India experience. He has been in-charge of the Tata Motor’s passenger car, body engineering team and has lead development of the Bolt, Zest, Tiago, Tigor and Nexon. He was also instrumental in the development of the company’s upcoming SUV project – H5X Harrier.

Prior to Tata Motors, Calder has worked across the globe with EDAG, Nissan and Ford. He will be directing Skoda in the development of the company MQB-AO-IN platform to cater to local requirements and to keep a check on cost targets.

Back in 2017, Tata, Skoda and VW had signed MoU to jointly develop cars for future. But this was later cancelled.

Skoda India has planned investment of 1 billion Euros ($1.16 billion / INR 8,000 crores) in India 2.0 for the development and building of new models for both Skoda and VW with increased localization. The new products from Skoda are expected to be launched in 2020.

Both Skoda and Volkswagen will launch compact SUVs based on this new platform. These new SUVs will be perfect rivals to the current Maruti Vitara and Tata Nexon. Apart from these, they will also launch new gen Polo hatchback and Vento sedan under the VW badge. New gen Fabia and Rapid are also in the pipeline.

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