The car sales in the potential Indian market is good for General Motors as it aims to reach the 1-lakh mark by 2010. The company is to launch a Rs4lakh small car Beat next year. GM, the wholly owned subsidiary of the Detroit-firm is in the increase mode- 70000 units for this year against 65702 units in 2008. With the launch of Beat, the company is hoping rope in 40% of the growth in 2010, said the company’s MD.

The car would be assembled in its Talegaon unit with a production capacity of 1.4 lakh per year. At present the company is operating in a single shift and with the production of Beat there will be two shifts. GM had its own operation since 1994 with a 50:50 from Hindustan Motors. In 1999 it became the wholly-owned subsidiary of the US Detroit. Now in India, it is taken over by Toyota. The brands from GM are – Optra Magnum,Aveo, SRV, Aveo U-VA, Spark, Tavera and Captiva which are assembled in the units at Talegaon and Halol with a combined capacity of 2.25 lakhs units.