GM India recently announced that they plan on increasing their production capacity at both of their plants in Talegaon and Halol with an investment of $500mn over a two year period.
P. Balendran, the Vice President of GM India, was quoted as saying that they are expanding the production capacity at their Halol facility in Gujarat from its current 85,000 vehicles capacity to 1.10 lakh vehicles per annum. They would also increase the production capacity at their plant in Talegaon. Their plant in Talegaon has a production capacity of 1.40 lakh vehicles per annum, with a total capacity of around 3 lakh vehicles per annum. They plan to launch more vehicles through their joint venture with Chinese auto company, SAIC from this facility. These will be utility models that they plan on displaying at the Automobile Expo. They will also make an investment of $500mn for new products and expansion over a period of two years.
Following the recent demand in the market for diesel powered variants with the increasing gap between diesel and petrol prices, as prices for petrol keep on escalating, GM recently launched their diesel powered Cheverolet Beat at an amazing starting price of just INR 4.25 lakhs, differing from the market trend of pricing diesel cars higher than their petrol counterparts.
He added that they expect the market to slow down. With the rising inflation, the RBI is expected to raise their repo as well as reverse the rates of repo that will further increase the rates of interest.
Most of the auto sales were driven by loans and they expect that a hike in interest rates will further affect the conditions in the Indian auto market. They also don’t expect the market to rise anytime before the beginning of the festival season in India.