India’s third-largest two-wheeler manufacturer, TVS Motor Company Ltd. is scaling down its investment plans in India, owing to weaker demand and tight availability of consumer finance.
TVS, which was earlier planning to invest about Rs 1 billion per annum on expansion, will now only invest about Rs 750 million per year for the next two years. ‘We have seen low growth and will only invest for new models and R&D projects now,’ said Venu Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director, TVS Motor. ‘There is no significant investment in capacity. Given the turbulent conditions, we would trim our investments,’ he added.
TVS Motor had recorded a 19 percent increase in total two-wheeler sales in September this year, but the company expects growth to slow down in the near future, primarily due to lack of availability of finance. ‘We don’t expect improvements till the end of 2009, as the global economy is slowing down. The crisis in the west is affecting us here, nobody is really willing to lend,’ said Srinivasan.
GM India has launched a new variant of the ChevroletAveoU-VA as a part of its centenary year celebrations. The car unveiled by Chevvy’s brand ambassador Saif Ali Khan. “The new Chevrolet U-VA brings superlative value and additional safety, security and luxury to our customers,” said GM India vice president P Balendran at the launch. “We will continue to roll out new products and also revitalise our existing line-up to create new excitement in the market,” he added.
The exterior and interiors styling remains exactly the same but GM have added a few new feature to make the overall deal sweeter. The new Aveo U-VA comes with additional features such as driver side air bag, anti lock braking, keyless entry with burglar alarm, leather wrapped steering wheel and gear knob, split folding rear seats and deco moulding on the instrument panel and door trims.
Bentleys and buckets of torque go hand-in-hand. Therefore, it might make some sense for the German-owned British luxury marque to consider one of the VW Group’s big, powerful turbodiesels for one of its upcoming models. Not so fast, says Bentley. It has specifically polled its customer base - made up mostly of Americans and Asians - to determine if there’s any interest in an oil-burning Bentley. Apparently, there isn’t. Instead, the luxo-barge company will focus on biofuels in an effort to lower the fuel consumption and emissions of a numbers of its models.
