Chevrolet Beat small car from GM for US

The Chevrolet Beat will make it to the US. Question is, when?

General Motors’ stock price is at its lowest levels since the Eisenhower days, and sales of trucks and other gas guzzler models are tumbling due to the skyrocketing gas prices. It looks like GM may look at the Chevrolet Beat small car, initially planned for the European market, as the vehicle that might shore up its bottomline in the US. Looks like the days of the Hummer are over for GM; welcome to the small car world!

The Beat is a two-door hatchback small car introduced as a concept last year at the New York Auto Show to an enthusiastic response from the market. Front wheel drive, and powered by a turbocharged 1.2 liter engine, the Beat can easily survive urban traffic and might not be a dog on the highways. Fuel efficiency expected is 40 MPG, (16 kmpl) which makes it quite attractive at this time. Size-wise, the Beat would be comparable to the Toyota Yaris or the Honda Fit – and for that size, a 16 kmpl claimed fuel average is impressive. And the Beat is a great looker too – wherever in the world GM displayed the Beat, viewers and automobile journalists just fell in love with it.

General Motors is designing and building the Beat in South Korea. To be sold under the Chevrolet brand name, that the Beat would be unveiled in other global markets faster than it would be in the US. The concept model of the Beat was unveiled along with two other ultra-small cars at a couple of automobile expos in 2007.

There is a bit of confusion about the Chevy Beat, though. Bob Lutz, GM chief, has said that it might be a bit too late for the US market – it might be the next generation Beat that might come to the US. We hope that was not a final statement.

The low-cost car market already has a significant GM presence in the form of the Chevrolet Aveo sedan and five-door subcompact. This market is expected to be strengthened further with the arrival of the Chevrolet Beat. Though the pricing and related aspects have not yet been decided on by the car major, a company top executive said that General Motors mini cars ideally would start about $10,000 in the US market.

The US mini car mart is currently seeing a small boom, with sales figures showing nearly 31 per cent rise for the first half of the year. This is significant considering the fact that the overall auto market in the United States is down more than 18 per cent.