Team-BHP - Chevrolet to invest US$ 1 billion in India. EDIT: Plans put on hold

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Originally Posted by ram_hyundai (Post 3765452)

Its going again with GM. They are continuing to do mistakes. Should learn something from Ford. Launched Opel brand. Closed it and started Daewoo Brand. Maybe its also going to close. Opened Gujarat plant. Going to close it too. Had it not allowed Daewoo plant in India to close maybe things would have been better for them.

Daewoo existed in India prior to GM's rescual/buyout of Daewoo and parallel to GM's Opel offerring. For example Daewoo Cielo (an earlier version of the Astra/Kadett) was a competitor to the Opel Astra.

Opel brand was closed in India to dissociate from the costly to maintain/spares image, those cars were over engineered cars. On the other hand also, GM did not want to mess up with the Opel brand by slapping Opel logo's on cars from GM-Daewoo stable. But they seem to have gone one notch lower even from that, by moving to cars from chinese GM-SIAC combine. The Indian consumer now is conscious about what they are putting their money on and GM will have to do better than giving us a chinese car with an American moniker.

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Originally Posted by ram_hyundai (Post 3765501)

Had they continued in India with the Daewoo products they would have been more successful. I remember seeing a Daewoo display in Bangalore with at least 4 new cars on display which they planned to launch. It was just months before the closure of Daewoo in India.

The Spark, Beat & Cruze are all Daewoo's.

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Originally Posted by amit (Post 3765534)

The Spark, Beat & Cruze are all Daewoo's.

I did not mean them.I think it was Nubira,One SUV,another one sedan,an MPV. It was sad to see them walk out. The MPV had a passenger seat which could be rotated so that it faced backwards. It also had a small table in the middle which could be retracted.

This must be the manufacturer with the maximum number of re-launches throughout its stint in India.

It was one of the first wave of 'phoren' manufacturers to set up shop in India - initially considered introducing the Opel Kadet into our market and customer-clinic'ed it all over the country (the first car that was so clinic-ed). If am not mistaken, they were the first to set up a factory in the country.

Then Daewoo entered the market and announced a much more modern version of the ancient Kadet - the Cielo. Many people suspected at that time that this is why GM India launched the Astra instead of the Kadet finally.

They've tried to sell German (Astra, Vectra), Japanese (Forester), Korean (Optra/Cruze) and Chinese (the current crop of sorry vehicles) here. Obviously it isn't the source of the car that is the problem - its the company itself.

Perhaps they should try American cars here now. Or the Aussie versions.

Then we can discuss yet another attempt and look forward to yet another 'revival' a few years down the line.

Why are these guys in the business?

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Originally Posted by Zappo (Post 3765544)

I dont think the Cruze is a Daewoo though!

Daewoo Lacetti Premiere, or Stretched (Premiere) Optra (Lacetti).

GM claims this to be a new platform developed in South Korea with inputs from Opel. However it was still heavily based on the original Lacetti (Nubira in Europe) platform.

Here is the problem of all manufacturers except Maruti and Hyundai. What will sell more?

Spark vs AltoK10?
Back in 2011 when I checked on Spark and Alto, the Chevy sales guy convincingly explained how Spark with 1.0 engine is technically better than AltoK10. As I was not an expert then, the decision was complex. It was my first car and as much as I was inclined for Spark, knowing that it was improvised version of Matiz, there were some problems. First, Spark was not moving as much as, cough, cough, Alto K10. Add to it, Spark was more expensive than K10 by 30-40K and its base version was pretty hopeless. What clinched the deal for me was Maruti's product cannibalization. I ended up buying the Alto LXi which was nearly 80K lesser than Spark version. Status does not change much today.
Today, Spark LS costs 476016 while Alto K10 LXi costs 427811, and Alto800 397169. As much as Chevy would like the first-time buyer to go for a Spark, the AltoK10 is still cheaper than their car. Add to it cheap spare parts and wide network. If only Spark LS would be priced closer or lesser than K10, they can easily sell 1-2K more per month though not Alto sales per se. A first time buyer has serious problem to put his money with Chevy.

Beat or Celerio ?
For sake of simplicity, I don't want to pit Beat against the mighty Swift. Again, Celerio has no great looks advantage. Its VXi version costs a simple 527074 while LT Beat petrol is again a mighty 611618.

Without going into any further details, Chevy loses ever competition vis Sail-UVA vs Swift, Sail vs Dzire (the former is plain and later not a good looker). The least Chevy needs to do is match the prices if not lower. Without that, it will be almost always the same story.

I may have the muscle power but unless I know how to use it, it is not going to serve any purpose. Same is the case with Chevy in India.

The company is of the opinion that almost all players operating in India are smaller than Chevy (Globally) and that is not working out here. The law of the land prevails and that is what has worked for both Suzuki as well as Hyundai.

You show by what you have brought on the table both in terms of product as well as commitment and the companies outshined in India while even local players (Tata's specifically) could not do it even after India being their stronghold.

If Chevy is serious, its good for them as well as for the customers if not, well exit is always possible for everyone.

Companies should think twice before making assumption that Indian customer has a short lived memory and they will forget everything, those days are gone and the market is now offering ample choices in every price band and for all kinds of mobality requirements.

Pull up your socks !

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Originally Posted by PNTLovesNano (Post 3765741)

Spark vs AltoK10?

Today, Spark LS costs 476016 while Alto K10 LXi costs 427811, and Alto800 397169. As much as Chevy would like the first-time buyer to go for a Spark, the AltoK10 is still cheaper than their car. Add to it cheap spare parts and wide network. If only Spark LS would be priced closer or lesser than K10, they can easily sell 1-2K more per month though not Alto sales per se. A first time buyer has serious problem to put his money with Chevy.

Beat or Celerio ?
For sake of simplicity, I don't want to pit Beat against the mighty Swift. Again, Celerio has no great looks advantage. Its VXi version costs a simple 527074 while LT Beat petrol is again a mighty 611618.

The comparison for Alto looks to be fine, but cannot really take on Alto 800 here as the name implies, but the comparsion for Beat LT should be with respect to ZXi variant of Maruti. Since VXi is the top end model of Celerio, that can be compared with LS and not LT, if it is that case the price difference might be little closer and not as shown here.

Just by reducing the cost, cars cannot and will not sell, if its that way, we would be seeing all Nano's and Datsun Go on roads instead of other small cars. If we try comparing Eon with Alto 800 and check for the cost difference between them, we can get a clear answer for this. If cost was the driving factor we would not see on an average of 5K Eon's rolling of the floor month on month.

The problem here lies on the something else and not the cost alone.

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Originally Posted by ram_hyundai (Post 3765452)

GM is an American multinational corporation. They initiate in respect of trial & error, hire & fire and other practical methods. Since their presence in India, what do i observe is their multiple experiments here. They lack maruti`s like vision to launch their products.