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GM May Produce 0.8L Mini-car for India Market
6 March 2008
Hindu Business Line. GM may manufacture a 0.8-liter engine car to target the small car market in India.
“Our existing Spark platform can produce a mini-car with a 0.8-litre engine. I am not closing the door to such a possibility for the Indian market. Particularly with the small car market expanding, a number of opportunities are being created inside one segment,” Mr Karl Slym, President, General Motors India told Business Line.
GM already sells Chevrolet Matiz with the same capacity engine in Europe. But whether it would be a new car or from the existing range, Mr Slym said, “We have the capability. So it could be a new car or similar to our existing range.”
(A hat-tip to Amrish!)
March 6, 2008 in Brief | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBack (0)
Comments
Posted by: Jerry Z | March 06, 2008 at 12:08 PM
That i10 CNG got good output with small emissions.
"0.8L 3-cylinder turbocharged engine (72 kW/ 97 hp) and a CNG application delivers class-leading CO2 emissions of 65 g/km."
I guess that you would have to look at India's power grid to see if they could recharge millions of cars.
Posted by: sjc | March 06, 2008 at 12:20 PM
Hi sjc...India has to generate power somehow, whether it be fuels & their transportation for ICE or electricity. Already India plans to boost its power grid 40,000MW per year. Much of that power will be generated by coal as are China's even bigger plans.
Both countries' directions are staggering. As much as I hate coal for electrical generation, it might be the way to go if India can site coal-fired power plants somewhere outside of cities to reduce their deathrate.
Chinese dead per year due to air pollution is 750,000, a large proportion due to ICE emissions inside cities!!! Sixteen of the top 20 most polluted cities worldwide are in China. ICE is the grim reaper in China.
China plans to build 1000 coal-fired plants!!! Where India could site coal-fired plants in lesser, but a similar magnitude of numbers to save lives, is beyond me. The U.S. will try to reduce the pollution from all these future power plants.
Sorry for all the exclamation marks. I'm just floored by the magnitude of the present air pollution deaths in China. Similarly, I'm stunned by the potential growth & air pollution to come in India & China.
Posted by: litesong | March 06, 2008 at 05:18 PM
That was my point. India has been going to CNG in the cities. That might not be a bad way to go if they can make methane using biomass. The ICE will be with us for a while yet and can be clean enough in lots of cases using the right fuel.
Posted by: sjc | March 06, 2008 at 05:21 PM
For what it's worth, India already has a great electric car company, reva, which is sold in the UK as the G-Wiz. I think there is demand for small petrol cars in India, based on the reaction to the Tata Nano.
Posted by: Amy K. | March 06, 2008 at 06:11 PM
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Instead of producing another petrol powered car for India (or anywhere for that matter), why doesn't GM use India as a test-bed for new, small, inexpensive, and all-electric vehicles? If they made something like the Zap Xebra (http://www.zapworld.com) at a price close to that of the Nano they would go along way towards promoting green technology and cleaning up their own name at the same time. I don't get it?