Chevrolet Cars

Summary

General Motors India Private Limited is a partnership with 93 per cent stake is handled by General Motors while the rest 7 percent goes to SAIC. Chevrolet has been in India since 1928 as it was assembling trucks, cars and even buses. It was in 1954 that GM became a partner with Hindustan Motors and manufactured Vauxhall cars, Allision transmissions and bed for trucks.

GM came back to India with Hindustan Motors and introduced the Astra. Then came in the Corsa family of vehicles. The JV didn’t do well and the company came back to India with the Chevrolet badge. Chevrolet had procured Daewoo that was already being sold in India and it came in India with the rebadged Matiz as the Spark and launched it with a new engine as well. GMIPL has now opened its technical center in Bangalore, Karnataka where all its vehicle engineering, research & development activities takes place.

Executive Management

General Motors has a complete change in its management. Kader Kazem is the new company head and it was previously held by Arvind Saxena.He is now the  Vice President of Planning & Programme Management for General Motors International Operations. 

Indian Operations

GM has been one of the first foreign automotive manufacturers to enter India. The company began its journey in India in as early as 1928. Now, the company has two production plants: one is in Halol, Gujarat and the second in Talegaon, Maharashtra. The Halol plant will be shut and the company is looking at shifting its production to the Maharashtra plant. This is where the major production will happen. The company will be moving its Indonesian production also to the Maharashtra plant. The company is looking at increasing exports from India and thus making the company profitable. Talegaon is one of their largest and most flexible plants in South-East Asia. Its technical centre is established in Bangalore. 

Product & Services

Chevrolet has a bout 270 dealerships in India at the moment and the company has about 248 sales touchpoints across the country. These outlets exist in metros, tier-1 and even tier-2 cities as well. The company has a good spread of dealerships and service network in the country.

Environmental Initiatives

Chevrolet as a company has several hybrid and electric vehicles that are sold across the globe. The Chevrolet Volt is a highly recognised green sedan. For India though, it only has CNG on the Sail and Spark range. The company hasn’t done much when it comes to the green initiative from the company.

Founder And First Car

General Motors was founded by William C. Durant and Louis Chevrolet. They together formed Chevrolet Motors on 8th November 1911. Chevrolet had Etienne Planche who designed the costliest car back then, the Series C Classic Six. He was Louis Chevrolet’s close friend and an avid designer. The prototypes of the C was developed even before Chevrolet brand was named. This was when the company began its journey and since then there has been no stopping. 

USP

Chevrolet vehicles are good in all aspects. Space, features, power and even fuel-efficiency. This is what makes a cHevrolet product so good. It has a good after sales package as well. But the brand has taken a hit as it didn’t launch any new products for a while and at the same time it did struggle to sell the existing portfolio as well. This is what has made it difficult for Chevrolet. The Sail family didn’t do well for the company and even the Enjoy has been a letdown, when compared to the other Chevrolet products.

Resale Value

Chevolet has a lost a lot of market share and due to this, the company is loosing out its brand value. The Cruze once enjoyed a good resale, now all the brand products are struggling with resale.

Competition

Chevrolet is competing with the Hyundais, Maruti Suzuki, Tata and even Toyota. These are major competing brands with Chevrolet. In terms of sales it matches Fiat, Nissan and Skoda.