GM's Talegaon facility may become operational in 2008

Chennai: General Motors’ Talegaon manufacturing facility will be operational in April 2008.

It will have a manufacturing capacity of 1.4 lakh units a year, but will initially manufacture 60,000-80,000 vehicles, most of them Chevrolet Spark, according to Mr Ankush Arora, Vice-President - Marketing, Sales and After sales, General Motors India.

At a press conference to announce a General Motors dealership tie-up with Chennai-based KLN Group, he said the company also plans to launch a diesel sports utility vehicle, Chevrolet Captiva, early next year. The price of the vehicle is expected to be around Rs 20 lakh.

When asked about the company’s plans to launch the Cadillac range of luxury vehicles in India, Mr Arora said it would be delayed as the company “already had enough launches on its hands”.

The company also plans to start a used car programme early next year to address the second-hand car market. “We are targeting about 6,000 units a month.”

The programme will be tested in eight-nine towns across India before a full-fledged launch is announced, he said.

Mr Arora said the company plans to expand its network of sales and service outlets to 120 and 125, respectively, this year. Over 80 per cent of this network would be in tier-II and tier-III cities.

“The demand pattern in tier-II and tier-III cities is no different from that in tier-I cities,” he said. General Motors currently has 99 sales outlets and 101 service outlets across India.

The company aims to sell about 66,000 cars this year compared with 38,800 it sold last year. This includes 18,000 units of its small car, Spark; 24,000 units of multi-utility vehicle, Tavera; about 8,000 units of the Optra; and 16,000 units of Aveo, Aveo-UVA and Chevrolet SRV.