General Motors on Thursday said that it would drive into the high-volume mini car segment in the country by the next calendar year with the Chevrolet Spark.

The company said that it would launch a mini car in India in the first half of next year from its existing unit in Halol (Gujarat), even as it is yet to take a final decision on its second plant.

"The mini car will be rolled out from our Halol facility and this would get the benefit of excise duty cut for small cars announced by the Government in this year's budget," the GM India

President and Managing Director, Mr Rajeev Chaba, said on the sidelines of a press conference announcing the launch of the Chevrolet SRV.

Capacity expansion

General Motors is in the process of increasing capacity at its plant in Halol.

"By the end of this year, we will touch an overall production capacity of 85,000 units per annum. Our current sales target for the year being 45,000-50,000 units, we will utilise the additional capacity for the mini car," Mr Chaba said.

When asked how the company intends to meet the additional capacity requirement once the mini car is launched, he said,

"At the moment we cannot give a definitive answer on a new greenfield plant.

"However, our target of achieving a market share of 10 per cent by 2010 remains and for that we would be requiring additional capacity.

We have already lost a lot of time because of negotiations related to the purchase of Daewoo assets".

The company on Thursday launched a sports car, Chevrolet SRV, with a starting price of Rs 6.97 lakh ex-showroom in Delhi. Targeted at young professionals, the car is also available with `option pack' with additional features at a price of Rs 7.51 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi). The car is based on the Optra platform and comes with a 1.6 litre petrol engine.

On proposed product launches, Mr Chaba said that GM would roll out a CNG variant of its premium sedan Optra next month and a diesel variant by the first quarter of next year.

Further, the Aveo UVA will be rolled out later this year.