BS-IV version of Tavera by next year: GM

"We concluded the agreement last week and now have partnered with International Cars and Motors Ltd (ICML) to roll out the Bharat Stage IV version of Tavera," General Motors India Managing Director Karl Slym told reporters here.

He said the BS-IV powertrain fitted Tavera, capable of being upgraded to BS-V, would hit the market by January 1, 2011. All the company's products in India would be BS IV variant by 2011, he said.

The Bharat Stage-IV version of Tavera would be a two litre CRDi engine he said, adding, there would be an "slight" increase in in cost, compared to the existing version. Currently General Motors India produces premium SUV Captiva, midsize sedan Optra, premium sedan Cruze, midsize sedan Aveo, hatchbacks Aveo U-VA, Spark, Beat and SUV Tavera from its manufacturing facilities in Halol in Gujarat and in Talegaon.

Slym said the manufacturing facility at Talegaon in Maharashtra would officially roll out engines from November 12. It would initially have a capacity to produce 1.4 lakh units in one shift, with provision for doubling it. General Motors India Vice President P Balendran later said the company had so far invested Rs 5,000 crore in India.

The Talegoan plant was GM's first flexi engine plant, where both petrol and diesel small car engines would be manufactured, he said. To a query he said they would roll out three Light Commercial vehicles and two cars in India by next year end.

"We will bring out three pick-up vans from the commercial vehicle segment and two passenger car variants by end of next year or early 2012. All these would have 90 per cent localisation content," he said.

Slym earlier this month has said GM has raised a Rs 1,000 crore from a consortium of Indian banks to part-fund a USD 250 million (nearly Rs 1,160 crore) investment for launching five vehicles from the stable of Chinese partner, SAIC, by 2012.

Balendran said GM plans to touch the one lakh sales mark this year, buoyed by a 113 per cent growth. "Last year we sold 69,579 units and this year we are targeting over one lakh units. In the first six months of this year, already 68,000 units have been sold and the growth this year was over 80 per cent," he said.

General Motors India reported a total sales of 7,124 units for July, up 45 per cent from the same month last year.