Slym: Speeding ahead

Pune, Nov. 14: General Motors India (GM) is expecting a 56 per cent growth in sales this year at over 1,10,000 units against 69,579 last year. By October, GM had sold 93,960 units.

“We are confident of crossing the 1-lakh mark in 2010,” Karl Slym, president and managing director of GM India, said while inaugurating the company’s engine facility at Talegaon near Pune. The unit will produce 1.6 lakh engines in the first phase.

The company has invested over $230 million in the facility. “We can increase the capacity by 1.4 lakh in the second phase, which will bring the total production capacity to 3 lakh,” said Slym.

Minister for heavy industries and public enterprises Vilasrao Deshmukh and chief secretary of the state J.P. Dange were also present at the inauguration.

With its new engine plant in place, GM is looking to launch a number of vehicles.

“We will launch six vehicles in India in the coming 24 months in collaboration with our Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp (SAIC), with whom we have a 50:50 joint venture. We will launch a one-tonne light commercial vehicle, a pick-up truck and a multi-utility vehicle — all from SAIC’s stable. We will also launch a hatchback, a notchback and another small car which will be jointly developed with SAIC. All the cars will have the GM branding,” said Slym.

GM is likely to increase prices of its cars by 1-2 per cent by the end of this month. “With a 5-10 per cent increase in input costs, we are being forced to revise our prices,” said P. Balendran, vice-president (corporate affairs). The company had last revised prices in July.

The company has also invested $1 million in a bio-diesel development project. The project is in collaboration with the Central Salt and Marine Chemicals Research Institute and the Department of Energy, USA, to produce the jatropha plant.

“The goal of the project is to demonstrate that jatropha can produce significant quantities of oil for conversion to biodiesel and to develop new varieties of the plant that have high yields,” said Slym.