General Motors India's small car Chevrolet Spark will soon be launched in the electric version on Indian roads. Chevrolet India has forayed into a technology tie-up with Reva Electric Car Company. The main aim is to produce green cars and the Bangalore based Reva is set to assist in the endeavor.
General Motors India, Vice President P Balendran said "While Reva will provide the technology, GM will do the engineering and manufacturing of the green cars." The D-segment sedan 'Chevrolet Cruze' was launched here on Tuesday and talking about the sales, Mr. Ankush Arora, vice-president (sales, marketing and aftersales), GM India, said "The D-segment car market in India was currently pegged at 4,000 units a month, which was expected to grow at 10-12 per cent next year". He added "We expect to sell 800 units of Cruze a month to start with and take the number to 2,500 by the end of this calendar year." He said the company had received 1,200 bookings for Chevroler Cruze in the last 15 days, of which close to 65 are from Hyderabad.
At its Halol (Gujarat) and Talegaon (Maharashtra) manufacturing plants, Chevrolet India plans to export 20 per cent of the production starting 2011. The two facilities have a capacity of 225,000 units a year. The company is also setting up a new line with a 160,000-unit per year capacity at Talegaon in order to manufacture petrol and diesel engines, which will go on stream towards the end of next year.
Cars from Reva never became hugely popular in India due to the high prices and the fact that the initial version of the car suffered from low build quality. Government subsidies were non existent and the car suffered from limited range and it was powered by the lead acid battery. But the newer versions namely NXR and NXG will change the perception as the car will escalate to improved battery technology.
The technology tie-up between General Motors and Reva is certainly going to yield positive results as the product is slated to be India's first real electric car.
