Trends: Auto, General Motors, Asia-Pacific hub, Power-trains, Sedan Cruze, India

GM to make India Asia-Pacific hub for power-trains

Unperturbed by the Mumbai terror attacks and its ongoing struggle to avoid bankruptcy back home, US auto major General Motors said it is making India power-trains development hub for Asia-Pacific region.

The company's Indian subsidiary General Motors India (GMI) has already announced a total of $500 million investments in the country to set up new car and power-train manufacturing facilities and it will be hiring 500 people in the second-half of next year.

Considering the fact that the hub will cover countries like Australia, China, Korea, choosing India as the location is a significant decision.

The company, which employs a total of 1,600 people in its engineering and research and development centre at Bangalore, will be enhancing the manpower strength there.

While the initial focus would be on development, GMI would also look at making India a power-train manufacturing hub as well in due course of time.

General Motors has a total of eight R&D centres across the world, including that in India, while it has 11 engineering centres globally. In August this year, GMI had announced setting up of a new power-train facility at Talegaon with an initial investment of over $ 200 million. This is in addition to more than $ 300 million already invested in the vehicles manufacturing facility, which has a capacity of 300,000 units.

The power-train unit has a capacity of making 200,000 units a year. It is expandable up to 300,000 engines per year. The company has been in fact stepping up enhancing operations, specially in the sales and service network in India. GMI will be launching two new cars next year, Sedan Cruze and a mini car.

The Big-Three US carmakers- GM, Ford and Chrysler, had asked the government to provide low-cost loan of 25 billion dollars to save the companies. GMI has, however, maintained it is making investments in India on its own and the financial troubles faced by the parent will have little impact here.

December 1, 2008
Source: Economic Times
URL: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/News_By_Industry/Auto/Automobiles/GM_to_make_India_Asia-Pacific_hub_for_power-trains/articleshow/3780188.cms