Just as Leftlane reported earlier this month, General Motors is seriously considering building a Tata Nano rival for developing markets. To produce such a small, inexpensive car, GM would increase its share hold in China’s Wuling Automobile Co. — of which GM already owns 34%. Wuling currently sells vans and pickups for as little as $3,000 in developing regions.
GM vice chairman Bob Lutz says that if Wuling was to produce passenger cars, GM could uses those cars to go head-to-head with Tata’s Nano. While GM is keeping tight-lipped about further investment in Wuling, Lutz indicated that it’s not out of the question. “That’s not impossible over time. It’s nothing we’d want to talk about today,” he said.
Lutz also said that GM has already allotted a budget for the development of a Nano-rivaling vehicle. “We move a legacy architecture and parts that have been around for a long time,” he told Automotive News. “Then we create a vehicle that’s very inexpensive, and it could not be sold in the developed world because it wouldn’t meet regulations.”
GM CEO Rick Wagoner also told Leftlane at the Detroit Auto Show that an older architecture would be the ideal candidate for an ultra low cost vehicle.
Lutz supported Wagoners claim that no such vehicle is headed for the U.S. market. He said there are already plenty of cars in the U.S. in the $2,500 price range, “they’re called used cars.”
