GM will soon commission its engines manufacturing unit
GM, that is, General Motors India will soon be commencing the first phase of its engine manufacturing unit . This unit will be located at Talegaon near Pune in Maharashtra. According to P Balendran, vice president (corporate affairs), GM, the unit will begin by the second week of November, this year. The plant has a capacity to produce 160,000 petrol and diesel engines for mini cars in Phase I. The plant has been set up at an initial cost of $210 million which is about Rs 1,000 crore. In phase II, around 140,000 engines are estimated to be produced.
Balendran said, that the company is also planning to export engines and mini cars from India to the countries in the Asia-Pacific region. The company would decide on commissioning Phase II, depending on the marketing conditions. He further said that the company has sold 1,257 Captiva vehicles in 2009 and is expecting to sell 3,500 units this year.
He further added that if the company was able to sell around 4,000 units or more, then it might look into the localisation of its production. He also said that Captiva is the only vehicle in the GM-India's portfolio at present that was being imported as a CKD (complete knock down) unit.
All other Chevrolet cars sold in the country have a localisation in production that ranges from 60-80 per cent. In Tavera, the localisation of production was 98 per cent. The vice president also said that the company was expecting to sell over 100,000 cars this year which will be much more then the sale of last year, that is, 69,575.