General Motors India to launch diesel engine for 'Beat' in early 2011

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 today.

       
The auto major will also manufacture its 1.2-litre gasoline engine from the same facility, which will be introduced at the end of this year, he said.

       
This manufacturing plant at Talegaon has a capacity to produce 1,60,000 engines. "By August-September both the Talegaon and Halol (near Ahmedabad) manufacturing plants will be operating to full shifts," he said.

       
The car-manufacturer 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 units to 4,000 from the present 3,300 units," Arora said.

       
The company also plans to add 80 service and sales centres taking its total network pan-India to 300 covering 209 cities, by end-this year, he said.

       
Chevrolet, launched in India in 2003, sells 10,000 units per month, which includes cars like Spark, Beat, Tavera, U-VA, Optra, Aveo, Cruze and Captiva.