GM India to expand capacities at Halol, Talegaon

General Motors India today said it planned to increase production capacities at both its Halol and Talegaon units, investing $500 million over two years.

"The production capacity at our Halol plant in Gujarat is being expanded from its present 85,000 units to 1.10-lakh units. Production capacity at our Talegaon plan would also be increased," General Motors India Vice-President P Balendran told reporters here.

"Currently, it has a 1.40-lakh units capacity with the capacity to increase it to up to 3-lakh units," he said.

"We plan to roll products of our joint venture with SAIC from this plant. These products will be utility vehicles which we plan to display at the Auto Expo. We will be investing $500-million on new products as well as expansion over two years," Balendran said.

The company today launched its Chevrolet Beat Diesel and eyes a sale of 4,500 units per month despite the sluggish market.

The car comes in three variants, with Beat PS priced at Rs 4.25-lakh, Beat LS priced at Rs 4.59-lakh, and Beat LT priced at Rs 4.99-lakh, with a pack of options priced at Rs 5.45-lakh.

Like the Beat with a standard petrol engine, the Beat Diesel has a comfortable, stylish interior. Its advanced in-dash integrated ice-blue lit music system with full-size USB allows audio streaming and has several enhanced sound quality setting options.

"We expect the market to be sluggish. Inflation is rising and the RBI is expected to hike its repo and reverse repo rates, which will push up interest rates. Much of auto sales are loans-driven and we expect that an interest rate hike will affect the market. We don't expect the market to take-off before the festival season," he said.