GM has announced that its Chevrolet brand is to be at the heart of a new investment plan to strengthen its emerging markets business with a family of new models.
Chevrolet is investing US$5 billion through the development of a new new vehicle family that will meet the rapidly changing demands of customers in emerging markets.
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“With a significant majority of anticipated automotive industry growth in 2015 to 2030 outside of mature markets, Chevrolet is taking steps to capitalise on that growth,” said General Motors President Dan Ammann. “Strengthening Chevrolet’s position through this major investment is consistent with our global strategy to ensure long-term profitable growth in the markets where we operate.”
By creating one all-new vehicle family to replace several existing vehicles, Chevrolet says it expects to substantially improve competitiveness and profitability by delivering what customers expect in each market while taking maximum advantage of the benefits of global scale.
“This new vehicle family will feature advanced customer-facing technologies focused on connectivity, safety and fuel efficiency delivered at a compelling value,” said Mark Reuss, GM executive vice president, Global Product Development, Purchasing and Supply Chain. “It will be a combination of content and value not offered previously by any automaker in these markets that are poised for growth.”
GM has also further expanded its successful partnership with SAIC Motor through an agreement to jointly develop the vehicle family core architecture and engine, which it expects will result in significant development cost savings and optimised total vehicle cost.
GM said the program represents another important step in GM’s previously stated architecture consolidation plan.
The vehicle family is being developed by a multinational team of engineers and designers assigned to ensure each entry is tailored to meet the expectations of customers in each market. Vehicles will be manufactured and sold in several markets including Brazil, China, India and Mexico, and exported for sale to other important growth markets.
GM said there are no plans to export the vehicles to mature markets such as the US. A high level of localisation of parts suppliers is planned and GM said that should drive significant savings over the life of the program. The program is expected to grow to more than 2m vehicles annually with the first entry planned for the 2019 model year.
“We have taken many decisive actions over the past few years to restructure our business in specific markets as part of our plan to become a more customer-focused company and to generate superior returns on our owners’ capital,” said Ammann. “This growth initiative is the next important step toward our goal of building the world’s most valued automotive company.”
More information on the investment plans and all-new vehicle family will be announced in the future in each market, GM said.
