GM South Korea has announced that the next generation of Chevrolet Cruze will not be their manufacturing team's responsibility.
The production of the next gen Cruze will be shifted to Europe. The move is to improve the efficiency of GM's European operations which is going through a rough patch.
GM's South Korean subsidiary manufactures around 2,60,000 cars annually out of which about 50-60% is the contribution of the Chevrolet Cruze. Apart from South Korea, the mid-size sedan is built in several countries like the US, China, Brazil, India, Russia etc.
The Cruze is a CKD operation in India. The knocked-down Cruze is shipped from South Korea and assembled at GM's Halol factory situated in the state of Gujarat. The Cruze will join stable mates Renault Fluence, VW Jetta and Skoda Laura as a European import.
GM's European operations which include Opel and Vauxhall never posted profits in the last 12 years. Mr. Dan Akerson, CEO of GM had proposed number of cost cutting actions for the Opel's German plant which would be accompanied by shifting the production from Asia. GM Europe expects a loss of $1.8 billion this year.
The next generation Chevrolet Cruze will be launched at the end of 2014 and go on sale in 2015. The car will be the first GM vehicle to use the global platform that is being developed by the Detroit based automaker. The new platform is targeted to underpin 2.5 million compact sedans and crossovers by 2018.
[Source: Reuters.com]
