General Motors is on the anvil of increasing its output of engines and cars at the Talegaon facility to each 3 lakhs annual units. This will be materialized with the introduction of second phase to 1.6 lakhs(engines) and 1.4 lakhs(cars) at this car plant. The same plant will witness the combined production of petrol and diesel engines with the initial capacity of 1.6 lakh diesel engine units to be steeped to 3 lakh units per year. GM is on the verge of a JV with Shanghai Automotive and there will be a need for this project to feed the LCV production (without official badging).
The increase of engine will see the rush to meet the demand for engines to Chevrolet models in Beat [images]and Cruze [images]. The proposal was firmly confirmed by the company’s VP for corporate affairs. He said that there will be an expansion of the facility by 300 acres at an investment of $200 million. The Halo and Talegaon plants will have the second shift to feed the demand since the plants have the annual capacity of 2.25 lakh units.
The primary facility for small cars at Talegaon is fit to deliver 1.4 lakh units while Halol plant has the capacity of 85000 units. The VP further said that a new passenger car in sedan segment will come off on SAIC platform. GM is quite happy with its launches but disappointed with the less production. Cruze was anticipated to sell about 500 units but by April it saw the sale figure of 692 units. The vehicle has now got the waiting time of 2 months similar to Beat, he asserted.