General Motors plans to introduce a Light Commercial Vehicle (LCV) range in India by 2012. This LCV range includes passenger vehicles and cargo vehicles. Chinese Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation (SAIC) will provide support GM to introduce this segment in India. SAIC is a Chinese joint venture partner of General Motors.
In a TOI interview, General Motor’s Indian President Karl Slym said, “Yes, we are working very aggressively towards the launch of commercial vehicles in India and GM hopes to corner sizeable numbers in the market soon after their launch.” He also added, “Halol facility will be the main hub for these commercial vehicles that we plan to offer with diesel and alternate fuels. We are investing Rs 250 crore at Halol and will increase the production capacity there to 100,000 vehicles, most of which will be used for commercial vehicles,”
In continuation, Karl Slym also stated, “We have decided for a separate sales network as the customer profile for LCVs will be different to a regular car customer,”
“The diesel engines on these will be below 1.5 liters and these would come up from out powertrain facility at Talegaon. The capacity of the cargo vehicles will be somewhere around one-tonne payload and the passenger vehicle will have the capacity to seat five to ten passengers."
