Posted on 01/09/2008 11:30:46 PM PST by Arjun
The Tata Rs 1-lakh car is here! And it's called the Nano!
Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata on Thursday unveiled the Tata Nano at the 9th Auto Expo in New Delhi.
Details of the People's Car:
Ratan Tata, while unveiling the nano, said: "The car will meet all current safety norms and all emission criteria. The pollution it will cause will be lower than 2-wheelers."
The car, Tata said, is smaller than a Maruti [Get Quote], but has 21 per cent more volume or space inside than the 800. He said that the dealer price of the car will be Rs 1 lakh, plus value-added tax (VAT) plus transport charges.
The car will have a 624-cc petrol engine generating 33 bhp of power. It will sport a 30-litre fuel tank and 4-speed manual gearshift. The car will come with air conditioning, but will have no power steering. It will have front disk and rear drum brakes. The company claims mileage of 23 km per litre.
The car's dashboard features just a speedometer, fuel gauge, and oil light. The car does not have reclining seats or radio. The shock absorbers are basic.
Nano, the world's cheapest car, costs almost half of the cheapest car currently available anywhere in the world.
''Since, a promise is a promise the standard dealer version will cost Rs 1 lakh,'' said Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata.
He informed that the car is 8 per cent smaller bumper to bumper, than the Maruti800 but at the same time 21 per cent larger in its interiors and can sit up to four people.
Dispelling myths that the car was not safe enough Tata said, 'The car has passed the full-frontal crash and the side impact crash''. He also side stepped emission concerns and said the car will meet Euro IV norms.
While critics had been sceptical throughout about the car meeting safety and emission norms, coming as it is at that price, Tata said he was happy to announce that Nano meets all norms as would a modern car.
The car is eight per cent shorter than Maruti 800 on bumper to bumper length, but is 21 per cent more spacious, claimed Tata.
Alluding to fears expressed by environmentalist R K Pachauri and green activist Sunita Narain that the car at that price would add more vehicles on the road leading to higher vehicular pollution, Tata said the 624 cc, 33 HP petrol engine meets Bharat Stage-III emission norms and can also meet the Euro 4 norms.
"Pachauri will not have a nightmare and Sunita Narain can also sleep," he quipped, while recalling that some people had suggested that the car should be called 'Pachauri' and some others said that it should be named 'Mamta' � probably referring to the position TMC leader Mamta Banerjee had taken against the setting up of the small-car project at Singur in West Bengal.
Commenting on the safety standard, he said the car has gone through a full frontal crash test as per norms.
The Nano will come in three variants -- standard and two deluxe models with AC. The standard car would be available for Rs 1 lakh (ex-showroom), while VAT and transportation costs are extra.
The Nano is expected to be commerically launched in the second half of 2008. News reports say that Tata Motors [Get Quote] hopes to sell 500,000 units of the car, almost four times the number of Indicas it sells. Tata plans to focus on a market segment hitherto untapped.
Not since the launch of the Maruti 800 in 1983 has any car gripped the imagination of a nation and indeed car manufacturers the world over so intensely. If commercially successful, the Tata Nano can alter the passenger car market in India, and perhaps the world, beyond description.
Realize that the typical buyer of the Nano only has a moped now, and will have to scrape hard to come up with $2500. It may be their family's first car ever.
For them, it may be the equivalent of an American spending $50K on a car. This is a good thing for India and for other places where people have little money, and fuel is expensive. I wish the Tata project well.
Read post 28. The average city speed in India is 20 to 30 kph. I don’t think a wreck at that speed will cause massive carnage. It’s safer than a moped.
That’s a nice Mustang GT! ;-)
They’re all waiting for the equally inexpensive car from China.
The car is obviously made for export to the U.S. and Europe.
Deathtrap.
Sanskrit, and its child language Hindi, have discrete words for every power of ten up to 1017. Lakh, used most commonly in English-language publications in India, is 105. Or, as we would say, using a lot more ink, a hundred thousand. One lakh Rupees is around $2,500.
I don’t know about the USA, but it will do pretty well in India, SE-Asia, Africa, Central and South America and South-Eastern Europe (Most of Europe I would say given the European preference for small cars, albeit a “much safer” version).
One must wait to see the Chinese reaction to this car though. I am sure they have taken all the designs and photographs and 6 months down the line, they’ll claim to have designed a cheaper car with PVC hard-seats and a 5 kmpl performance engine.
looks like it needs some silicon implants to me...
thanks for the chuckle
23 km per liter —> 54 miles per gallon...
I think you are absolutely right about that. The amount Americans spend on their cars is just too high. No automaker is going agressively down market, because higher profits are to be had at the expensive end of the market. There are few enough producers to make this the most profitable strategy for everybody.
But somebody is going to come from outside and eat their lunch. Hyundai came out of nowhere 20 years ago, and had a good time of it. They have joined the porker parade recently, though.
I prefer to drive an inexpensive car. It saves money for other things. I will hand the keys to my Scion to the valet at the best restaurant in town, and come out ahead of the guy who is driving his Mercedes to the McDonalds drive-thru.
I’m sure this will find its market in the US; probably in the states with mild climates. But here in northern Michigan I need my four wheel drive just to make it out of my driveway after it snows.
For college kids?... Yeah my college age son would really like to pick up chicks in this ride :)P
It's one thing to develop a car, and an entirely different thing to do so with those severe pricing preconditions.
BTW, this was a car whose pricing restrictions were declared impossible to be met, by established carmakers like Suzuki.
That’s a Civic Engine with a turbo on it, right?
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