At a time when the demand in automobile industry has gone down, General Motors India (GMI) is banking on fuel-efficient vehicles and alternate fuel options to drive growth across different categories.
No wonder the company is gearing up to launch more products powered by alternative fuels like CNG and LPG in the domestic market. ?In the first place, our strategy is to have high fuel-efficiency in all our vehicles. Then we will be introducing vehicles powered by (alternative) fuels like CNG and LPG, besides having different power-trains and different displacements,? says Karl Slym, president & MD, GMI.
Slym said the company will be launching an LPG-driven car in the first half of this year, without specifying details, adding that it would be followed by other LPG vehicles. GMI already has Optra CNG as a variant, and according to company officials, it is looking at introducing a similar option for its entry-level sedan, Aveo.
On Friday, GMI launched the automatic transmission four-wheel drive version of its SUV Captiva, priced at Rs 20.3 lakh. ?As far as Captiva is concerned, we exceeded our target by almost three times last year. Overall sales for the company this year should be better than last year but it is difficult to project a figure considering the current market conditions,? Slym said.
GMI registered a growth of 9.5% in 2008 at 65,702 units, as against 60,032 units during 2007. However, in December 2008, sales of the company went down by 35.95% at 4,041 units, thus pulling down the overall growth in the calendar year. The overall passenger vehicle industry, however, went down by 13.86% at 99,352 units in December 2008 as against 1,15,334 units during the corresponding month in 2007. ?Since the market has slowed down, we could not meet our target, although we have registered a growth of 9.5% this year. However, we expect the market conditions to improve because of the measures being taken by the government to stimulate the economy,? P Balendran, vice-president, GMI said.