Auto major General Motors India plans to manufacture diesel engine for its Chevrolet Beat at its Talegaon manufacturing facility near Pune, a top company official said. “The one-litre diesel engine will be rolled out from Talegaon early next year for our small car, Beat,” General Motors India Vice-President (Sales, Marketing & Services) Ankush Arora told reporters here on Saturday.
The auto major would also manufacture its 1.2-litre gasoline engine from the same facility, which would be introduced at the end of this year, he said. The Talegaon plant has a capacity to produce 1.60 lakh engines. “By August-September both Talegaon and Halol (near Ahmedabad) plants will be operating to full shifts,” he said. GM is also planning to ramp-up production of its small car Beat and sedan Cruze. “We are planning to increase the production of Cruze to 900 units from the current 600 units and intend to raise production of Beat to 4,000 from the present 3,300 units,” Mr. Arora said. The company also proposed to add 80 service and sales centres taking its total network pan-India to 300 covering 209 cities, by the end of this year, he said. Chevrolet, launched in India in 2003, sells 10,000 units a month, which includes Spark, Beat, Tavera, U-VA, Optra, Aveo, Cruze and Captiva.
