The Beat B segment hatchback that we have on sale in India is basically the latest generation of Chevrolet Spark. The latest gen car is sold with the Spark moniker in most international markets. In India though, the last generation of Chevrolet Spark battles it out with the very popular Maruti Suzuki Alto and the Hyundai Eon and the latest gen car is being sold as the Beat in a higher segment.
Regulars here would know that we have reported a fair bit about the Chevrolet Spark Electric Vehicle. The Spark EV looks almost the same as our Beat but gets an all electric powerplant instead of petrol or a diesel engine. It has now emerged that the carmaker is readying an updated petrol variant. The 2014 Chevrolet Spark will come with auto headlamps and a CVT automatic gearbox instead of the 4 speed torque converter automatic transmission.
The diesel variant of the Chevrolet Beat has done pretty well in Indian market. The Beat is also available with petrol and petrol-LPG engines. Powering the high selling Chevrolet Beat diesel is a 936cc-triple cylinder turbo diesel engine that has been derived from the 1.3 litre multijet diesel that powers most of the hatchbacks and small sedans in India. The Beat aka Spark doesn’t come with an auto ‘box option in Indian car market. All the variants on sale in India come with a 5 speed manual gearbox. With Maruti having launched an auto box for its AStar and Hyundai planning to launch the next gen i10 with a modern automatic transmission, it does make sense for Chevrolet India to bring the automatic transmission for the petrol variant.
Source GMInsideNews