General Motors Corp. may bring the next-generation Chevrolet Beat minicar to the United States in an effort to inject more fuel-efficient cars into its lineup, Vice Chairman Bob Lutz said.

GM plans to manufacture the first-generation Chevrolet Beat minicar in South Korea for sale outside of North America beginning in mid-2009. Automakers typically take three to five years to release a next-generation vehicle.

GM showed the Beat along with two other minicar concepts — collectively referred to as the triplets — at the New York Auto Show last year.

Lutz said the company may bring the next-generation Beat to the United States, but “we think it’s too late for this one.”

Hyundai India offers a path to upgrade to bigger cars

Hyundai Motor India has launched a new scheme which is designed to entice the owners of their small car products to bigger models.

The company is inviting customers who want to move on to a higher model. This is applicable to customers paying an EMI on their small car.

Customer can get his existing model evaluated which can be put in as the down payment for a bigger model.

The company then recalculates the EMI for the customer which in most cases can turn out to be lower than the original one.

Arvind Saxena, Senior V-P, marketing & sales, Hyundai Motor India spoke about this offer: “We want to see people upgrade to bigger compact cars and sedans which would be more compatible with the lifestyle of our current customers and hence we have tailor-made these scheme for all the owners of smaller hatches who were so far forced to use a smaller car because of budgetary constraints.”

Car makers General Motors (GM) and Ford have reported strong growth in the first half of this year in China, the world’s second largest vehicle market after the US, despite auto sales downturn in their home market.

The US’ largest automaker GM, said it sold 590,126 vehicles in the first six months, posting a 12.7 per cent rise over the same period a year earlier.

Ford said its sales rose 21 per cent from the year earlier period to 172,411 units. This included passenger cars produced by Changan Ford Mazda Automobile Co. Ltd., a joint venture of Chongqing Changan Automobile Co Ltd, a Ford Motor Company and Mazda Motor Company, which rose 25 per cent to 116,903 units.

Ford’s China sales grew a robust 30 per cent last year but the 21 per cent rise is still much stronger than in North America where there is a downturn for automakers.

Kevin E Wale, President of GM China, said the company’s multi-brand strategy was taking effect with new models of brands such as Chevrolet, Buick, Cadillac and Wuling receiving good “feedback” from Chinese consumers, official Xinhua news agency said.

Major US, European and Asian automakers have been investing heavily and competing aggressively in China, where sales are expanding at double-digit rates.

The soaring international oil prices have not had much impact on auto sales in China where the fuel prices are government regulated and kept at lower levels.

Japan’s Honda Motor (China) Investment Co. Ltd, said its sales in China rose 21.3 percent year-on-year to 186,991 vehicles during the first half of 2008.

The growth rate exceeded that in its home market and other overseas markets. In the first six months, Honda’s sales shrank in Japan and grew merely 4.1 per cent in the United States - its biggest overseas market.

Despite the mounting production cost and rising oil prices, the Chinese auto market would continue booming, Zhu Linjie, an official with the Honda China company was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

He said Honda was expecting 20 per cent annual sales growth this year in China - its fastest growing market worldwide.