After laying low for more than a year, Chevrolet well finally launch two new products in India this year - the new-generation Chevrolet Beat and the all-new Chevrolet Essentia subcompact sedan. We saw the concept models of both the cars at the 2016 Auto Expo and the latter was recently spotted testing in India again. Draped in heavy camouflage, the new Chevrolet Essentia will mark the American carmaker's entry into the highly competitive and now crowded sub-4 metre sedan space to rival a long list of competitors right from leaders like the Maruti Suzuki Swift Dzire, Honda Amaze and Ford Aspire to the soon-to-be-launched Tata Tigor.
Chevrolet Essentia
Now this is not the first time the Chevrolet Essentia has been spotted testing in the country. In fact, back in December 2016 we brought you a set of clear spy shots that revealed a lot about the production model. From what we could make out, this one is the production ready model and Chevrolet will be filling it to the brim with features. In fact the big USPs of the Beat Essentia will be space, features and mileage. Of course styling is also going to be a major differentiator among its rivals and as we know the Beat Essentia has been completely designed GM's design studio in Korea.
Even in these pictures you can see, that the Beat Essentia looks extremely proportionate for a subcompact sedan and the test mule we had spotted a few months ago was running on 165/65 R14s, the same as the ones we get on the Beat diesel model.
As we said earlier, Chevrolet will pack in a whole bunch of features in the Beat Essentia and we will see it get a dual-tone colour scheme for the cabin. It will also get a touchscreen with Chevy's Mylink2 infotainment system and on the higher trim we expect it to come with an infotainment system compatible with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. As far as safety features are concerned, the Essentia will have dual airbags, ABS, reverse camera as well. It will be a masterstroke though, if Chevrolet can make ABS and Airbags as part of standard equipment.
This will be Chevrolet's first sub-compact sedan
Coming to the powertrains, the Essentia will have a 1.2-litre petrol motor that will produce 77bhp and 107Nm along with a 1.0-litre diesel engine producing 56bhp and 142.5Nm. Both the engines will have a 5-speed gearbox. We are expecting the Beat Essentia to come with an automatic transmission as well, though Chevrolet are not planning to bring it at the time of launch.
The sub-compact sedan segment has bloomed over the past few years and the last car we saw entering this segment is the Volkswagen Ameo. The car has certainly raked in a lot of sales for Volkswagen and Chevrolet hopes that the Beat Essentia too does the same. In fact Tata Motors too is bringing in the Kite 5 sedan soon and it'll come in the 2nd quarter of 2017.
