Karl Slym, President and MD, General Motors, while commenting upon the company’s strategy for India for the medium-term, said that GM will introduce 6 new vehicles in the coming 2 years. The company will begin this launch with a stylish new SUV (sports utility vehicle) which is expected to have cost less than Chevrolet Captiva. GM will then continue to launch 3 new cars and 2 small trucks. The LCVs (light commercial vehicles) will also be sold in India under the brand name of Chevrolet. The company will be sourcing the LCVs from its Chinese partner, that is, SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industries Corporation), added Slym. He further stated that the engines for the light commercial vehicles will come from the new plant of General Motors India which is situated at Talegaon near Pune. This GMI plant will manufacture both diesel and petrol engines which will have the capacity range from 1-1.5 litres.

Mr. Slym also said that they have grown at more than twice the speed of the passenger car industry of India. They will be increasing capacities at the powertrain plant (which will be inaugurated soon) and at the passenger car manufacturing plant. The $230-million engine plant would begin with the petrol engine production for Chevrolet Beat. This production will be followed by a newly designed engine for Chevrolet Beat diesel engine product. Chevrolet Beat will be competing with models like Maruti Wagon R. GMI has localised component of around 60 percent in the Beat and along with the engine, the company will be able to have 25% more. The new cars of GMI will have a high local content, said Mr Karl Slym. In the next two years, the company will be launching 4 cars. Out of these 4 cars, the first one will be a small SUV.

About the Halol plant of the company, Mr. Slym said that the plant is going through the procedure of increasing its capacity to around 1 lakh units every year from the present 85,000 units. At Talegaon, the engine plant will begin with the capacity of 1.6 lakh engines per annum. General Motors India has got its passenger car and transmission manufacturing units yearly capacity at the Talegaon plant.