GM Europe To Produce Astra In U.K., Poland, Germany, And Sweden

The new General Motor's Astra is to build in plants across four nations: Poland, Germany, Sweden, and the U.K.

GM, which trades under the name Vauxhall in Britain will build the Astra in Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, beginning in 2010.

The Astra is GM's best-selling car in Europe, selling nearly 500,000 cars annually - in Europe the brand goes under the name Opel.

The world's biggest auto maker has been under pressure from losses due to competition from rival firms. GM Europe has cut 12,000 jobs since 2005; this comes amid efforts to drive regional operations toward profitability.

The new edition Astra is designed with technological enhancements in now available for order with two 1.7-liter diesel engines.

A statement on the car's web page said, "These highly efficient units, which both come coupled with six-speed transmissions as standard, already meet the design-engineering requirements for future emission standards - a characteristic shared by all Astra CDTI engines with maintenance-free diesel particulate filters."

It continues to say, "Customers profit from low running costs also as a result of the low average consumption of just 5.2/5.4 liters per 100 kilometers (five-door variant). The two 1.7-liter CDTI ECOTEC units combine their high power output per liter with a maximum torque of 260 Nm and 280 Nm at 2300 rpm respectively. The Astra GTC 1.7 CDTI models have a top speed of 187 and 197 km/h respectively, and their zero to 100 km/h acceleration times of 11.6 and 10.4 seconds show just how much dynamic potential the new engines possess."

The Astra production plant in Britain will create 1,400 jobs and the U.K. operations are expected to receive government grants. Under the new guidelines, Antwerp in Belgium will lose a facility that used to produce Astra. Other sites for Astra's production will include Bochum in Germany and Gliwice in Poland and Trollhattan factory in Sweden.

Source: By Jacob Cherian, allheadlinenews.com