General Motors, who recently bagged the title for the world’s largest manufacturer after overtaking Toyota in the race, has come up with a new plan for the flourishing commercial vehicle market in India. As being reported Matthew Tsien, executive vice-president at GM’s China unit recently said in an interview that soon Chinese-designed minivans will be sold in India through it’s sub-brand Chevrolet’s dealership network.
Such an interest in the commercial vehicle industry grew soon after the sector showed a 27 percent growth in the year ended March. With two small commercial vehicle models under consideration, the brand will compete with Tata and Mahindra & Mahindra, who together account for nearly 90 percent of the total market.
“The mini commercial vehicle market is quite large but GM does not participate today because there are no products. Having the SGMW products underthe Chevrolet brand will give GM India a tremendous opportunity to serve that very significant segment.” said Tsien, also vice-president at SAIC-GM-Wuling AutomotiveCo (SGMW), GM’s minivan venture with SAIC Motor Corp.
As being speculated, the cars will be be similar to Wuling Hong Guang and Wuling Hongfu. While Honga GUang is a 7 seat van available in 1.2 Litre and 1.4 Litre engine options, the Hongfu is an 8 seat van. With there two the brand targets the rural areas with small business enterprises. The company has already started working on it and besides the gasoline engines, CRDI diesel engine options are being added and also the starring mechanism is being shifted from left hand drive to right hand drive. The company will start assembling the CKD units and will soon switch to complete localization of the same parts.
I do hope that GM participates with full confidence and sincerity in the market as they are likely to get a good response from the market.
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