Chevrolet Beat Diesel coming in early 2011

Is this mule the diesel Beat?

Not to be left out in the small car segment, Chevrolet will launch a diesel version of the Beat in less than a year from now. It plans to manufacture the 1.0L CRDi engine at its Talegon plant near Pune, the same place where its it will begin producing the 1.2L petrol engine from end 2010. The diesel engine itself is our famous Multijet or DDiS with one cylinder chopped off meaning the Beat will be a 3-cylinder diesel. The Talegon facility can churn out 1,60,000 units per year at full steam. This will make the Beat’s package more tempting as a small diesel commuter car is in great demand, especially looking at the sales figures of the Swift Diesel and the Figo Diesel. Hyundai are also looking at locally producing a diesel engine for the i10 to stay ahead in this fiercely fought segment.

“The one-litre diesel engine will be rolled-out from Talegaon early next year for our small car, Beat,” General Motors India Vice-President (Sales, Marketing & Services) Ankush Arora, told. He added that “By August-September both the Talegaon and Halol (near Ahmedabad) manufacturing plants will be operating to full shifts,”. Chevrolet will ramp up the production of the Beat and Cruze. “We are planning to increase the production of Cruze to 900 units from the current 600 units and intend to raise production of Beat units to 4,000 from the present 3,300 units,” Arora said.

To keep pace with those sales figures, GM will add 80 more service and sales centres to take the total strength to 300 covering 209 cities.

Picture Source : Team-BHP

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