GM India strong performance attracts US

General Motors India has been termed as a strong performer by its beleaguered parent company General Motors of United States. The Supreme Court of U.S. has shown the green signal to General Motors for its restructuring and to form a brand new entity called General Motors Company.

After restructuring, General Motors wants to regain its control over its strongest performers including its Indian subsidiary. When this happens new General Motors will be able to show a stronger balance sheet and profits which will help it reinvest in development of future technologies.

It is also likely that General Motors may reward the Indian buyers for their continued support by bringing in some of their best cars. General Motors is already selling seven cars under the Chevrolet Brand. It is also likely that the new General Motors will pump in additional investments to make the Indian subsidiary more challenging.

General Motors India faced a minor hurdle when its parent company filed for bankruptcy. The Indian subsidiary worked to restore faith in the company and bring back customers to their showrooms. During this critical period, General Motors launched a campaign called ‘There for you, there for India’ to assure car buyers in India that the company was not leaving the country.

Since June 1, when the parent company went into bankruptcy frenzy, the Indian subsidiary has been showing a strong performance.

General Motors launches new Chevrolet Captiva

Auto major General Motors India (GM) on Friday launched the automatic version of its Chevrolet Captiva sports utility vehicle (SUV), priced at Rs.2.03 million (ex-showroom Delhi).

The SUV that was first launched in 2008 comes with a common rail diesel powertrain.

"The new Chevrolet Captiva Automatic+ brings superlative comfort and ease of driving combined with unbeatable value, safety, security and luxury to our customers,” GM president and managing director Karl Slym said.

The car features an automatic all-wheel drive (AWD) that GM claims is able to adjust between four-wheel drive and two-wheel drive automatically according to the terrain.

Renault Itching for a Return to the U.S.

French car maker Renault SA is still itching for a move into the U.S. automobile market -- the world's biggest, from which it has been absent for more than 20 years -- and might be interested in Chrysler LLC if its owners were to put it up for sale, a senior Renault official said Thursday.

Jacques Verdonck, Renault's vice-president for corporate and strategic planning, told Dow Jones Newswires that one option for the company is to try to establish a presence in the U.S. by itself, although this would be both "risky and costly."

That is because it would involve developing at least three new products specifically designed for the U.S. market, while creating a dealer network, either by forming an alliance with an existing dealership network or creating Renault's own network from scratch.

The other easier and less onerous way would be to link up with one of the large U.S. automotive companies, though this would imply that the partner is in good financial health and is sufficiently robust to carry the deal through, he said.

In 2007, talks between Renault and General Motors Corp. about a possible alliance collapsed after management of the two companies failed to see eye-to-eye on the potential synergies that could be derived from an alliance.

"We had discussions in past with GM that didn't work out even though there were considerable potential synergies," Mr. Verdonck said. "If the opportunity presents itself again, we will seize it. But if it doesn't, I don't believe we can launch an aggressive takeover operation against an American company."

In 1982, Renault took over American Motors Corp. to make the Alliance, a variant of Renault's subcompact Renault 9 car, but the project never made money and Renault backed out and sold off its interest to Chrysler Corp. five years later.

While a straight takeover is only one of several scenarios, he acknowledged that Chrysler "would make a good partner" in the U.S.

Potential synergies are different when you consider Chrysler, GM or Ford Motor Co., he said. Chrysler is more focused on its U.S. operations, while GM and Ford are more global players, he noted.

"What's important in a partnership is to ensure that management really wants to be in the partnership; if you do it against the will of the partner, you'll face huge difficulties," Mr. Verdonck said.

Renault Chief Executive Officer Carlos Ghosn said earlier this year that now is not the time for Renault to make a bold move into a new market such as the U.S., arguing that the company must first ensure the success of its industrial expansion in Morocco, in Latin America, India and Russia.

Carmakers offer gifts and gold to lure customers

It’s raining gold in the car market. Fighting sluggish market conditions, carmakers are offering diamonds sets, gold coins & chains, silver plates and MP3 music systems to lure customers into their showrooms before the festive season.

Traditionally, festive season has meant free insurance covers and auto accessories for buyers. However, this time around, carmakers such as Hyundai Motors and Ford India are offering precious metals to attract female customers and new buyers. Hyundai Motor India (HMI) is offering a free gold coin with its entire range (except i10 AT and Getz 1.5L CRDi) and an MP3 player with the Verna sedan range and the 1.1L & 1.3L Getz hatchback cars.

HMI managing director HS Lheem said: “We are offering these gifts as part of our successful decade-long operations in India. Besides, with these valuable offerings, we’re making Hyundai products very attractive for our customers.”

While Ford Motors India, which recently gave a facelift to Fiesta, is now offering Tanishq diamonds worth Rs 20,000 with every Fiesta. It has also started special offers including cash incentives for corporate and public sector buyers.

Car sales have nosedived in the past two months after a three year-long growth drive. While sales grew 3% in July, August saw a 1.71% dip year-on-year. To fight the slowdown, other companies are taking different routes to tap the market. Maruti Suzuki India has launched special incentives to attract over 25.4 lakh employees from the insurance, banking and retail sector with additional discounts of Rs 17,000 on SX4, Rs 5,000 on M800 & Alto, Wagon R, Estilo and Rs 4,500 on Swift (petrol version).

“It is a tough time and we are concentrating on non-core markets. Banks, financial institutions and insurance companies make up a big market, but still remain tapped. We are directly giving cash discounts to customers in place of tangibles,” a senior executive of Maruti said.

American auto major General Motor has also followed the similar path offering huge cash discounts. The highest cash rebate of Rs 58,000 comes on the Spark compact car, followed by Rs 46,000 on Tavera multi-utility vehicles. Other pre-Diwali offers include Rs 28,000 discount on Optra Magnum sedan along with a 4-5% interest waiver on all loan deals.

Honda Siel Cars India (HSCI) has plunged into the discount market for the first time and has waived 50% insurance premium on its popular City and Civic sedans, besides offering comprehensive warranty and service packages to the customers.

10th generation Corolla Altis

Whenever you talk about sport or politics or film stars or even cars, one tends to zero in on the two or three who keep on competing against each other making the competition even more fun and intriguing than the final outcome itself. In all these dogfights the one which has been played to a great extent continuously now for the past two decades has been the all-Japanese rivalry between the Honda Civic and the Toyota Corolla. These two have battled it out on their home turf, in the US (probably the largest and most important battlefield for this duo to perform on), in Asia and also in India.

It is a fight that not one single car ever wins comprehensively, the duo exchanging places at the forefront while continuously sparring at each other and in the process delighting the millions of users who flock to buy one or both of them!

This is exactly the impression I got when Toyota Kirloskar gave us the exclusive use of a preproduction 10th generation Corolla Altis which was launched yesterday in New Delhi. It comes just about two years after Honda's quantum Civic-leap and it promises to keep the executive segment slugfest simmering in all earnestness.

Being Toyota the all new 10th generation Corolla is all evolution where the Civic was a barking mad revolution. However it depends on one's point of view as whether evolution is the preferred taste of the hour or revolution is what is needed to light those latent desires. We'll leave the Civic out of the picture now and concentrate totally on evolution and why it is good and great for the Corolla.

One cannot fault Toyota for their planning and their intense creed for detail and perfection. This is what makes the Corolla one of the most refined automobiles on the planet and at the price point it is pegged at, it makes for terrific value. Many a time I have myself mentioned the Corolla being a very boring car because it does things so perfectly well. Clinically efficient with nary a whimper or protest and that's why it is the car of choice for the sensible and the staid. The 10th generation Corolla Altis is the modern face of the sensible and staid and you have to really look closely as to how it has advanced in generation.

The Corolla Altis is an all new car with a completely new chassis but with the changes so subtly wrought on the outside that you need to have a protractor and a tape measure to know that the A-pillar has been moved a bit forward at its base while the C-pillar has moved further aft so as to try and give a sportier line to the cabin and also enhance the aero efficiency of the overall automobile. There is a new look grille treatment and the head lamp lenses have been restyled both in shape and form and also what rests within them – HID lamps as standard on all but the base offering.

Step into the cabin though and it suddenly seems that you are into a larger and more lavishly equipped lounge. In fact the Corolla rides on the same 2600mm wheelbase as its predecessor but wait what's this, a near flat floor at the rear? Has the Undertaker been hammering away for the benefit of the back benchers? Whatever be the case this denotes a significant detail behind not just the all new chassis but also the revised floor which helps provide better comfort and luxury to those who would love to be driven. This is clearly the forte of the Corolla Altis for it is in entry and exit plus also in comfortable seating that it scores greatly over its illustrious rival, the Civic. Where the Civic has been reviled for its evil sink seats by many a owner's family, the Corolla Altis comes across as a paradigm of evolutionary brilliance.

I have always maintained that there are certain cars which delight in their own way and the Corolla Altis customer is a completely different piece of cake from the cookies who devour the Civic wholeheartedly. Two philosophies of car building are at play here and Toyota has adopted the more pragmatic, middle-of-theroad approach so as not to be offensive to any one. Showering everyone in sheer luxury is another aspect and in the interior it is the Corolla which sure whips up the emotions in a sporty and comprehensive manner given all the bells and whistles from both a luxury and an ergonomic point of view.

Multi-function steering wheel, great detailing on dashboard and centre console, finely crafted upholstery and trim all around make the interior of the Corolla a very welcome yet soothing place to be in.

Get down to the oomph zone and that fuel injected 1794cc twin cam 16-valve four-cylinder engine is stunningly smooth and silky, as long as it lasts in its universal operating range. I will elaborate on this as we go ahead but it's not for nothing that the Toyota V8s in F1 are quite clearly one of the most powerful on the Grand Prix circuits and Toyota is in no way behind on the engine front. The Corolla's four-cylinder mill proves that as does the fine short throw 5-speed gearbox (we couldn't lay our hands on the 4-speed automatic but will do so soon), the 132 horses start galloping as soon as you tweak the loud pedal and work the gearshifter enthusiastically.

However to borrow a reflection from F1 yet again and the Toyota TF108s, while they may have the power, it is in the chassis dynamics where some work is needed. The Corolla Altis is yet hung in super soft mode so it is not handling which is given its due (at the top end of the performance spectrum) but the ride quality and the road holding which is tailored to deliver comfort to kids and moms and family.

Not a bad case this because given our road surface, this line of thought might alienate certain automotive journos and boy racers but will delight a whole host of those who have been damned and shamed by Jeremy Clarkson. On the flip side, were Toyota to tighten up the underpinnings and hook up a better set of low-pro and wider rubber, the Corolla could deliver a stunning blow to the nay sayers. And it also has disc brakes all around to take care of quick and safe retardation.

Build quality is typically Toyota efficient and attention to detail is terrific. The car comes with the latest generation ABS coupled with EBD (electronic brake force distribution system) while the company's GOA body structure is intelligently designed for best impact dissipation should the car be involved in a mishap.

The new Corolla Altis is typical of the way Toyota does cars – subtle and unhurried but with ample substance packed into it. It is not a fire breather in any way but some might have hoped that it could have an element to make the rabble rouser in the meekest of homo sapiens to sometimes surface when behind the wheel. It is a classy no-fuss no-nonsense car that just keeps on going and going. No wonder then that it is cars like the Corolla that has seen Toyota go a long way towards snatching the crown of the world's largest car maker from GM.

GM invests $200 million in powertrain plant in Maharashtra, seeks to increase market share

General Motors (GM) Corp, which aims to increase its market share to 10 percent by 2010 in India, has announced that it will ramp up its manufacturing facilities by investing more than $200 million in a powertrain plant in Talegaon, Maharashtra.

The facility, expected to be complete by the first quarter of 2010, will have an annual production capacity of 160,000 units that can be expanded to 300,000 units, GM said in a statement.

GM's auto plant in Talegaon is set to be operational this week and around 140,000 vehicles are expected to roll out every year, taking GM's all-India annual capacity to 225,000 vehicles.

The company has a plant in Gujarat from where it makes the Chevrolet-badged Tavera, Optra, Aveo and Spark and a technical center, including a design studio, in Bangalore. It imports the popular sport utility vehicle (SUV) Captiva.

Karl Slym, president and managing director of GM India, said the company is working on the design of its new small car, which it plans to launch in 2009.

The company has plans to roll out the small car from its new plant at Talegaon, Slym said, adding that the small car will be sold in India and exported to other emerging markets.

"The Talegaon engine facility is an important component of GM's global strategy to establish a strong presence in this market. This is just one of a number of investments, totaling more than $1 billion that GM has made over the course of the last few years in emerging markets around the world such as China, Korea, Russia and India," Slym said.

"We cannot remain a global industry leader without a strong presence in the high-growth market of India. The new facility will enable us to continue expanding our product line-up in India," Slym said, adding that the launch of the small car will enable the company "to capture more opportunities in one of the fastest-growing vehicle markets in the world."

The small car will not compete with Tata Motors' Nano, which is being touted as the world's cheapest car with a price tag of $2500.

According to market data, India sold about 1.4 million four-wheelers last year compared to 5 million in China and over 10 million in the US. Annual passenger vehicle sales are forecast to rise to 2 million units by 2010 and Indian car sales are expected to more than quadruple to $145 billion by 2016, with small cars accounting for more than two-thirds of sales.

However, GM is not alone in this emerging small car market. Other automakers have also expressed interest in developing and marketing the small car in India.

With India's middle class population growing in number, several automakers including market leader Maruti Suzuki, South Korean Hyundai Motor Co. and India's Tata Motors have begun focusing on the low-cost small car segment.

In January, Tata Motors launched Nano, which is expected to give stiff competition to Maruti Suzuki's existing line-up of small cars like Maruti 800, Alto, Wagon R and Zen Estilo. Hyundai Motor India Ltd. also came out with its compact car called i10, and plans to launch an upgrade, the i20, later this year.

In May, the Renault-Nissan alliance also announced that it has partnered with Bajaj Motors for launching a low cost car that will rival Nano by 2010-11.

Also entering the small car market is Japan's Toyota and its rival Honda, which have set up their second manufacturing plants in Karnataka and Rajasthan respectively to launch their small cars by 2010 and 2009. US-based Ford Motor Co. and Germany's Volkswagen AG also have shown interest in making small cars in India.

GM to launch new small car in India in 2009

General Motors Corp plans to launch a new small car in India in the second half of 2009, but has no plans to take on Tata Motor's low-cost Nano, its India head said on Thursday.

It will be a global car meant primarily for emerging markets and will have design inputs from India, Karly Slym said on the sidelines of a news conference.

Annual passenger vehicle sales in India are forecast to expand to more than 2 million units by 2010, with small cars accounting for more than two-thirds of sales.

GM’s future now depends on small cars

GENERAL Motors Corp. is known for making top- notch trucks and sport utility vehicles. The company’s survival now hinges on the difficult task of convincing buyers that its upgraded cars are just as good as its trucks and worth some extra cash. That’s essentially the business plan for the reconstituted GM, the one that is trying to make it in a US market where people no longer want $ 42,000 Chevrolet Tahoes that get only 14 miles per gallon ( 5.95 kilometers per litre) in the city. Instead, the revenue to sustain the nearly century- old industrial giant will have to come from cars, which have typically made only hundreds of dollars in profits.

Better cars, and lots of them. The change has come quickly. Faced with high gas prices and a weak economy, GM's sales fell 16 per cent for the first half of the year, with trucks off 21 percent and cars down nearly 9 per cent. GM has lost billions of dollars during the last three years. The company on Tuesday announced a combination of cuts, borrowing and asset sales that would raise $ 15 billion to weather the recent slump in US auto sales and the rapid shift from trucks to cars. Henderson, who concedes that GM has some repair work to do on its car brand image, says the change will have to come one or two models at a time.

It will follow the path of the new Chevrolet Malibu, which saw sales jump 46 percent in the first half of the year and average sale prices rise $ 4,000 over previous Malibu models due to improved quality. “ One product launch does not a success make,” Henderson said. “ It’s how do you build on that? But I think it gave us some confidence that if we get the car right and we get the promotion right, we can make progress and we can actually bring people back to the car.” GM has big plans for cars and car- based crossover vehicles. Nearly every brand, including Cadillac, will be getting a small car soon. Eighteen of the 19 vehicles GM is launching between now and 2010 are cars or crossovers.

One model, the sleek new Chevrolet Cruze due out in 2010, is the replacement for the clunky Chevrolet Cobalt small car. GM plans to power the Cruze with a 1.4- liter turbocharged four- cylinder engine, allowing it to get around 45 miles per gallon ( 19.13 kilometers per liter). Clark said in a statement, “ GM will likely face a sizable cash burn until it gets this part of the equation right.” GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said car prices also will rise because of demand, while truck and SUV prices will likely fall.