GM designed one front grill and has been tweaking it a bit to fit in its new range of cars. This grill has given the Beat and the Cruze a very appealing feel. The Spark’s electric variant whose drive train is developed by Reva gets to sport this grill and from what we see, it is quite electric.
Spark electric of e-spark as it is being referred will be lauched this October at a price tag of 7lakh rupees.
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GM turned heads with its transformers edition of the Chevy Camaro Bumble Bee at Delhi. We couldn’t feel more jealous of that fact that this “Boy’s best Toy” of a car could be bought in America for an equivalent of just 10lakh rupees.
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The Beat has been around us for more than a couple of months now and the blogger friendly CEO of GM India Karl Slym hasn’t kept this mini warrior from GM a secret. The car which is launched today comes with a petrol engine of capacity 1.2 cc and 80ps of power. To read more about the car and its features and check out 360 degree video of the car you can check out our earlier post here. we have kept the beat going on and on and finally it is ready for booking from this evening.
Karl confirmed during the launch event that a diesel engine will be launched by the end of this year. Right now the car comes in 3 levels of trims, the base model PS which costs 3.34lakhs ex-showroom Delhi, the mid-level LS for 3.54lakhs and the top end LT for 3.99lakhs. ABS and Airbags are an optional extra for the LT variant which would bring the total to 4.34lakhs. click here to check out the features of various variants.
Everything you would want to know about Chevy’s upcoming hatchback Beat is out on the air before its official launch on the 4th of Jan, the first day of the 2010 Delhi Auto Expo. Only the price of the car is yet to be disclosed officially, although it is expected to range from 4-5lakhs. The first batch of the beat will have a petrol power-train with a 1.2Litre engine which produces 80ps of power and 108Nm of torque.
According to Karl slym, The Head of GM India a made in India 3-cylinder 1.3Litre multijet diesel engine variant of the beat will be launched before the end of 2010. That’s not the end of it though; GM is going all the way with LPG and CNG variants of the Beat for the future.
The beat is 3640mm long 1595mm wide and 1520mm tall. The front end gets disc brakes and Macpherson suspension for sharp braking and smooth riding. The rear end gets drum brakes and compound crank suspension for smooth braking and sharp riding. The tyres are tubeless and make up for a ground clearance of 165mm. To gain a little perspective the Beat is a slight bit smaller than the swift in all these numbers. The hatch will be available in 3 trims of varied features and luxuries.
Standout features of the Beat:
Vertical Rear door handle
placement on the C-pillar
makes the rear a bit
closed from the outside
Driver Instrument panel
is similar to a motorcycle
Speedometer
Click through for a 360degree video of the Beat
GM India’s parent company GM has a 50-50 deal with a Chinese company called SAIC (Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.) in China. This joint venture has done both the brands magic in china with SAIC taking care of the low cost market and GM the uptown. since this JV has worked so well GM India has decided to strike a similar joint venture with SAIC to sell its cost effective vehicles in India.
The deal is on the verge of a public announcement and once that goes through GM India would launch SAIC’s low cost products starting with its commercial vehicle wing Wuling’s LCVs as the demand in this segment is ever growing. GM India would also be able to play around with Wuling’s fleet to people carrier vans.
Click through for Wuling’s entire fleet
GM India is taking things seriously when it comes to its electric car on the pipe-line, Spark. As reported earlier GM has tied-up with India’s only electric car maker Reva to provide the electric technological backing for making the Spark electric variant. GM has gone few more steps to make its Greener vision more real.
Quoting the words of Mr. Karl Slym, President and Managing Director, GM India
“We already have a joint venture with Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) for servicing our vehicles at some places, which can be replicated”, “For the success of the battery-run car, electric charging stations on roads and highways are a must”.
From this we can expect GM to strike a deal with BPCL to set up electric recharging units for electric cars at BPCL’s bunks, if that happens it would be a break through which pave way for zero-emission personal transportation.
Mr. Kark Slym also said that “We are going to manufacture not in hundreds but in thousands the electric car we would be launching next year,” GM India not stopping its Green theme here, it has an Aveo-CNG on the working for India.
