Tata Hopes to Introduce $2,300 Compact Car in U.S. in Two Years
Watch out Ford, Chrysler and GM: You could soon have another foreign car manufacturer invading your market.
Ratan N. Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, the Indian conglomerate whose Tata Motors unit introduced the highly publicized Tata Nano, a $2,300 compact car, in March, said in New York last night that he hoped to offer the car in the United States within the next two years.
Tata said the car -- which he said achieves 65 miles per gallon of gas -- "needs to meet emission and crash standards" before it can be sold in the United States.
Six years in development, the Nano is being sold in India in three models; the fully-equipped LX comes with air conditioning and power brakes, among other features.
The base model seats four adults, is 122 inches long and weighs approximately 1,300 pounds; it has a steel body and chassis, plastic bumpers and a 32-horsepower, two-cylinder engine mounted in the rear and accessed by a panel under the rear seat.
Although auto industry analysts in India question the Nano's reliability and safety, as well as Tata Motors' finances -- the company, which bought Land Rover and Jaguar from Ford last year, posted its first quarterly loss in seven years in January, and reportedly delayed payments to vendors because of cash constraints -- its chief seems undeterred.
Tata said last night the company has been "seriously looking" at biofuels, electrical power and clean diesel for vehicles.
"We've really been trying to conserve the use of hydrocarbons and remove emissions, and even looked at compressed air-powered vehicles," he said. Tata Motors, he added, "will have an electric car in the market in September."
Tata spoke at the closing session of the Cornell Global Forum on Sustainable Enterprise at the 92nd Street Y in New York. Other speakers included former Vice President Al Gore, who is chairman of Generation Investment Management, and H. Fisk Johnson, chairman and chief executive of S. C. Johnson & Son.
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It's a golf cart with headlights and bumpers.
From reading all the comments on this post, I think it is worth reminding everyone that TATA owns Jaguar and Land Rover - http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10925609
Americans will buy them,it depends on how they use the media and market to sell them.
It will be unfortunate if it becomes a success because unlike Japanese cars who will hire American workers in their factories here in the US, the Indian companies will import Indian workers into the US to build them.
I don't think there is cause for concern though, as this has the smell of the next Yugo all over it.
Importing labor? Nonsense, have you ever heard of green cards.
If it were really that easy to buld and market a $2300 car in the US somebody whould be doing it already. Passing minimum safety standards is one thing. Selling a car with a two-star rating is something else.
Saying your car has a top speed of 65 mph is one thing. How much that top speed will decline with even a slight incline or headwind is something else.
More than just a few tweaks would be needed for a 4 star crash rating and to maintain a 65 mph top speed while on a six percent up slope fully loaded.
Its 65 miles per gallon - not miles per hour.
So when it breaks down you just what ,FedEx it to India?
The US auto industry is going out of business because the Bush administration let them do whatever they wanted to, no matter how damaging it was to the long-term economy.
Instead of innovating, they made SUVs. Instead of working on fuel efficiency, we were financing terrorism one gallon at a time.
Conservatives are the biggest enemy the US has ever had.
Isn't it sad how your ideology can ruin your whole day? And all we really had to do was to watch and learn from how the Russians got bested by theirs.
:-)
New GM niche. Building tow trucks to haul TATA's. Ya get what you pay for...
Ya don't need no expensive tow truck for them Tatas. The big burly guy from the towing company comes out, picks it up and throws it in the back of his 4 x 4 pickup truck.
On the upside... there is no parking problem. When you lack a parking space you can just lean it against the wall. Just make sure you put chains on so nobody can pick it up and take it away.
Oh... wait... I am thinking about a bike.
:-)
Yup and it might present a marketing brand problem....TATA's sometimes slang for boobs.
I can see the advert now.....Nice Tata's eh....
Wow, tow truck industry stock must be hopping!!!
I imagine most people who would purchase this car would be using it in CITIES and for SHORT TRIPS and LOCAL excursions - not hundreds of miles on crowded freeways or cross-country with a U-Haul trailing behind.
If I lived in a city and did not drive more than a few miles from home for most of my activities and trips, I would buy one in a heartbeat.
The Tata Nano is a disaster, particularly for India.
Let's leave quite aside the fact that the true cost of this "one lakh car" is so fabulously externalized as to make the sticker-price a bad joke; the fact that Inida is so impressed with itself over something as counter-productive to its development displays the sort of misguided (quite literally: without competent leadership) thinking that will ensure that it never comes close to living-up to the promise that folks like Tom Friedman are constantly blabbing-on about.
My essays on this pernicious twist are found at http://memestreamblog.wordpress.com/2008/01/14/driven-to-write/ and http://memestreamblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/12/india-going-nowhere-fast/. Read them and weep -- for an India destined to mediocrity.
And simultaneously India is considering deregulating gas prices. This should be fun to watch.
India is hostage to four families - Tata, Birla, Ambani, Mittal. The sad fact is they always win in the end.
I hope they build cars better than they build software.
That must be the worst wish of the day... if they actually build better cars than software, then Detroit can shut down for good.
Nah, their software work isn't that good. They always misunderstand the requirements.
The Chinese cars that have been tested in Europe, have completely failed all of the crash tests. The Tata Nano, an even smaller car doesn't have a chance. The Tata Nano Europa, built for European specifications is estimated to cost about $6,000.
It is a 2 cylinder engine with a 0.6 liter engine. Try getting that to 60 mph on the freeway. I wouldn't believe all of the hype quite yet. This car makes the Yugo look like a luxury sedan, as it was a 0.8 liter 4 cylinder engine that could reach 70 mph.
The Prius runs on average on 15hp engine output or so at highway speed. You don't really need that much power for constant speed driving. Engine power is only needed to accelerate quickly. And how the car accelerates for a given engine size is a matter of mass. Make it light and a relatively small engine equals quite a bit of oooooomph.... that's what you get when you buy a Lotus... lightweight chassis and not much of an engine, a mere 189hp, 1.8 liter in the Elise. Still, with the right transmission that's enough for 4.9s 0-60mph. Scale that down and you probably get around 20s, 0-60mph in a Tata. Not exactly rapid, but enough to get through the day.
And by the time they stiffen that thing up so it can withstand a crash, it will add hundreds of pounds and the MPG will be reduced. But, this is a free market, If they think they can sell it here and it meets our safety standards, Welcome!
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