While the Chevrolet Cruze will get a comprehensive facelift in China, General Motors have chosen to give the Cruze mild updates in India. While the Cruze was refreshed in October last year itself, the new updates on the sedan are rather mechanical and not cosmetic as seen on the Chinese version. The updated version gets ORVM turn indicators as standard, while the major change comes in the fuel economy of the automatic variant.
The Cruze AT now delivers an improved fuel efficiency of a claimed 14.81 km/l, while the manual variant delivers 17.3 km/l ((ARAI certified). GM wanted to reduce the gap between efficiency of the manual and the automatic variants to enhance the sales of the latter in the market. The Cruze was updated with a host of cosmetic features last year; with changes to the grille, bumper and headlight design of the sedan. The airbags were also increased from two to four on the vehicle.
The Chevrolet Cruze is powered by a 2.0-litre, 4-cylinder VCDi diesel engine producing 166 PS of power and 380 Nm of torque, mated to 6-speed manual and automatic transmissions. The D-segment sedan features side and front dual airbags, ABS, safety cage, pedestrian protection as part of the safety list. You also get a host of other features like Bluetooth connectivity, multi-function steering wheel, cruise control as well as Passive Entry Passive Start (PEPS).
The price for the base LT variant of the Chevrolet Cruze with a manual transmission starts at Rs. 13.70 lakhs, while the top-end LTZ variant is priced at Rs. 15.19 lakhs for the manual and Rs. 16.20 lakhs for the automatic (ex-showroom, Delhi). Clearly GM is feeling the heat from the recently launched Skoda Octavia and is thus resorting to these frequent updates for its flagship made in India car.
