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GM to launch three cars in a row by end of 2012, 5 more new cars by 2018

The US based leading car maker General Motors is aggressively planning to give their India portfolio a new breath of life with rolling out a series of new car models. Recently, the company had announced that they are looking forward to bring-in as many as 7 to 8 new car models in the Indian market by year 2018. It has been quite some time since General Motors is operating in the Indian market, but their performance hasn’t been up to the mark with ordinary growth in sales. At the same time, the car makers like Volkswagen, which debut in the small car segment just two years back, are doing quite well in comparison.

While speaking to PTI recently in Pune, Mr. Rakesh Mohan Sabbarwal, General Motors (GM) India Vice President (Manufacturing), said, that the company is bringing lost of new car models in the Indian market and the firm is considering about 7-8 models over the period of next 5-6 years.  However, the company has kept quite on whether these new models will be in the small car segment or in the segment of SUVs or sedan.

The first among these upcoming GM models is Chevrolet Sail hatchback which is scheduled to be launched in the country in the last week of this month. New Sail model will be launched in the price segment of Rs 4.5 to 6.5 lakh. While the close rivals of the car will be Skoda Fabia, Nissan Micra, Renault Pulse and Hyundai i20, the other competitors will include Maruti Swift, Ritz, Ford Figo, Volkswagen Polo, Toyota Etios Liva, and Honda Brio etc.  The sedan version of the Sail will be introduced in the next month and Chevrolet Enjoy MPV could be launched in December, 2012.

Last year, the company managed to sell a total of 1,11,510 units in comparison to 1,10,804 units sold in the year 2010, as per the data released by SIAM (Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers).