General Motors kicks-off exports from India

Indian arm of the General Motors, today announced that it has commenced vehicle exports to Chile, South America. The first batch of 140 left-hand-drive Chevrolet Beats were shipped from the Mumbai Port Trust of Maharashtra on Sept. 25, which are expected to reach the destination in the next few weeks.

On the occasion, GM India President and Managing Director Arvind Saxena said, “The first shipment of Chevrolet Beats demonstrates our commitment to make our India-built products available in global markets. And we will continue to ship models to Chile on a monthly basis.”

Produced at GM India’s manufacturing facility in Talegaon, Maharashtra, Beat is the company's smallest offering in the country after Spark and brand's best-selling model in the country. Available with 1.2-litre petrol and 1.0-litre diesel unit, the Beat has an ARAI-certified fuel economy of 25.44 kmpl and 18.6 kmpl for the diesel and petrol variants respectively.

“We expect to identify additional export markets going forward. This will help drive capacity utilization at our Talegaon plant.” Saxena added.

As part of GM CEO Mary Barra’s recent trip to India, she participated in the rollout of the first Beat for export on Sept. 10. With a total investment of over $1 billion till date in India, the manufacturer looks forward to develop more than 2,80,000 vehicles per year from its manufacturing at Talegaon and Halol. Currently, the Talegaon manufacturing facility has an annual production capacity of 170,000 vehicles and 160,000 engines.