In the news: the Shanghai subsidiary of General Motors, the Shanghai General Motors Co Ltd has recently introduced its latest generation of Chevrolet Epica. The new generation of Epica is designed to boost the brand as well as the firm's competitiveness in the mid-class car segment.
The new generation Epica is equipped with a two liter D-Tec engine and will have a price ranging from 137,800 yuan ($17,794 USD) to 162,800 yuan offered in four configurations as announced by the company over the weekend.
Aside from its new design, the Epica will also be given new parts although a will not be part of the equation but the automaker has guaranteed that the new GM parts will enable the Epica to compete head-to-head with the other middle-class sedans in China such as the Ford Focus.
Ding Lei, general manager of Shanghai GM said, "The new Chevrolet Epica will play an important role in continuously lifting the Chevrolet brand. It will replace the old generation and became a new flagship model."
The Shanghai subsidiary of GM is actually a joint venture between General Motors Corp. and Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp. which launched the Chevrolet in the year 2005. Aside from the Epica, Shanghai GM also produces other brands such as Cadillac, Buick, and Saab models. The car maker has chosen to build up the Chevrolet brand through the addition of new products such as the new Epica which the automaker has designed in response to the increasing demands of young auto buyers for low priced economic cars.
The platform used for the Epica was derived from a Daewoo model from the South Korean automaker which GM bought. Last year the sales of the Epica was not good caused by its relatively high price and the overlapping positioning strategy with the Buick models.
Shanghai GM is expecting for its new generation Epica to increase sales by 50 percent and improve the overall sales of Chevrolet models by 20 percent for this year since it will cost 10,000 yuan less than the previous generation based on the luxury specifications.
According to Rao Da, secretary from the National Union of Passenger Car Market and Information, "GM is quick in discovering various niche markets with models to win the markets in a very short time."
Shanghai GM said that last year it was bale to sell more than 200,000 units of Chevrolet models. The carmaker is also planning of accelerating the production of other Chevrolet models. Last year the total units sold by Shanghai GM reach 413,367 which is an increase of 23 percent from 2005 ranking it as number 1 in all automakers in China.
