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GM to set up powertrain plant

— PHOTO: K. RAMESH BABU

SCALING UP: Karl Slym (right), President and Managing Director, General Motors India, addressing a press conference in Hyderabad on Friday.

HYDERABAD: General Motors will be establishing a powertrain (gearbox) plant either in Gujarat or Maharashtra at a cost of $200 million, taking the total investments of the company in India to $1 billion.

The company opened its third showroom (dealership) here at Malakpet on Friday.

Addressing a press conference, President and Managing Director of GM India, Karl Slym, said the company would open a new manufacturing plant at Talegaon near Pune with an installed capacity of three lakh units a year in the first week of September at a cost of $300 million.

Mr. Slym said the company would roll out another small car next year, while the sale of its SUV, Chevrolet Captiva, outnumbered the competition (370 Captivas were sold against 331 Honda CR-Vs and 252 Ford Endeavours in July). The powertrain plant would be located closer to a manufacturing facility. The company had an engineering development centre, design studio and an R&D centre in India. While production would be scaled up based on demand, the company might export a few units, based on the requirements, he said.

The existing capacity of the plant at Halol near Baroda was expanded from 60,000 units to 85,000 units.

While it was targeting a sales growth of 30 per cent (85,000 units) this year, it sold 60,000 units last year. The engineering centre had 1,400 engineers working on developing powertrain for Indian markets.

Vice-President (Sales), Ankush Arora, said the company was planning to expand dealership network to 190 outlets with focus on Tier-II and Tier-III cities across the country, as 40 per cent of sales was coming from those areas. It would be re-launching its used car sales beginning next month by opening outlets in all the 10 major cities.

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