Timothy E. Lee, vice-president and head of international operations at General Motors Co. (GM), comments about the car maker’s plans for India in an interview. Edited excerpts:
India is proving to be a tough market now, but you seem to have a lot of products lined up. What’s the way forward for GM in this market?
Spirited show: Lee says GM will weather the current ups and downs in the market and move forward with its launch plans. By Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
Is your strategy to focus basically on SAIC products because you have got vehicles from GM Korea (like the new Aveo) that you appear to have shelved?
We have not shelved any product. We have a three fold approach. Firstly, we have our global architectures that we execute and deliver globally. Secondly, we have partner products such as those with SAIC, and finally, we have local products like the Tavera, a great value-for-money product.
Chevrolet sales just haven’t picked up. What’s going on?
Personally, I am not satisfied with our sales performance here. We have a good product portfolio and are an emerging brand. In terms of overall customer experience, sales and service satisfaction, we are doing as well as we do anywhere in the world. So the essence of brand Chevrolet will soon catch on, especially since this will be a brand with many more products in its fold. Our commitment to India has been spotty so far but that’s history now.
You have a diesel only at the bottom end (Beat) and top end (Cruze, Captiva) of your range. Are you missing out on the diesel boom?
We wouldn’t want to lose out on an opportunity in a country where we have built a flexible engine plant that can build diesel and petrol engines. When we roll out our new products, you will see a commitment to both diesel and to petrol with products that are spot-on for each segment. When we launch a new vehicle, it will come with both powertrains.
Is Chevrolet now the mother brand or would you look at other brands such as Cadillac or Opel which, perhaps, could be brought back?
This is the simplest question that you have asked me. Our focus is on Chevrolet, nothing else.
You will be launching the Sail in a very competitive market, taking on established players. What is your strategy to get market share?
We will price our products confidently. We are not going to go out and buy market share. The essence of the brand is practical and spirited in performance, and that is how we will approach the market and not give up one sale to anyone without a fight.
The Spark is a legacy product that you have had for a while but what’s your strategy? Will we see more refreshes?
Our plan is to have a good blend of both legacy and new products, and so the Spark, its profile and its base engineering works for us. We will continue with the nameplate and you can expect to see nice things with the product.
Coming to your development centre at Bangalore, will you leverage this a lot more for legacy products?
We have expanded our capabilities in the design area and have used our strengths in powertrain engineering here in our more recent powertrain introduction. We can go faster now and be sure that when we work on legacy architecture like that of the Spark, our Bangalore centre will play a significant role.
You have not fully utilized capacity at Talegaon and now have an alliance with Peugeot. Would you look at sharing capacity here as a logical extension of what you are doing in Europe?
I have said this before and will say it again now that there are no plans to build Peugeots and Citroëns at our Talegaon or Halol facilities. Our focus with Peugeot and Citroën is about sharing architectures and, presumably, doing some purchase work as well, and that, too, predominantly in Europe. We have operational issues in Europe and it is our intention to fix those.
Based on our current product plan for Chevrolet and its allocation between Talegaon and Halol, I think we’re going to run full with no slots available for Peugeot.
Hormazd Sorabjee is editor, Autocar India.
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