…The little car of the future?
India’s Tata Motors has unleashed upon the world the Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car.
After months of rumors and tantalizing leaks — and as we first told you earlier this week — Indian automaker Tata Motors has finally unveiled the Tata Nano — its already legendary $2,500 (1-lakh)car. As expected, the car that Tata claims will change the face of not only the Indian car market, but the global auto industry will be a four door, five seat hatch, powered by a 30 HP Bosch 624 cc four stroke engine mounted out back and mated to a CVT. That makes the Nano the first time a 2-cylinder gasoline engine will be used in a car with a single balancer shaft. The Nano’s also expected to get 54 US miles per gallon.
But notice how quickly US automakers and the media have gone out of their way to portray the Tata as a something of a third world laugher.
WASHINGTON: Snippy sarcasm and grudging admiration greeted the Indian debut of the Tata Nano in the world’s most mobile society, where there are nearly twice as many cars as families.
It seemed that American reporters were present in droves at the event, judging by the coverage the buggy received here. It made news on almost every media outlet, including the evening network news watched by more than 30 million viewers, causing one wag to remark that the US was hit by the “El Nano” effect.
“It can seat five people…if no one breathes,” ABC News anchor Charlie Gibson said sardonically against the footage of the event. Time dubbed it an “upstart econobox.” And Popular Mechanics headlined its story “Nano Is the $2500 Car That Might Change the World,” before the reporter hits the brakes.
“From where I stood, crushed between an elbow-throwing television reporter and three teenagers, also jockeying for position and armed with cellphone cameras, the Nano looked underwhelming,” he wrote. “Automotive journalists had traveled from the four corners of the globe too see a golf cart crossed with a jelly bean.”
Wired magazine thought it was pretty cute. “C’mon, it’s practically smiling,” its correspondent wrote. MotorTrends magazine called it the world’s “ultimate reverse status symbol.”
The attention Tata’s Nano is getting here is hardly surprising considering the United States is home to the largest passenger vehicle market in the world. As of 2004, it counted 243 million automobiles for 135 households, about two cars per family.
They’re also bound and determine to point out that nothing like a $2,500 car would ever make it in the US or UK.
While it is the price of the Nano that will make headlines, it has had safety campaigners raising questions about the impact – quite literally – that this car will have for drivers and pedestrians.
India has 8 per cent of the world’s vehicle fatalities and less than 1 per cent of its cars, with more than 90,000 people killed on the country’s roads every year. Introducing a million Nanos into the mix may bring more – and unwelcome – headlines.
Although the Indian automotive industry has made great strides over the past 20 years in aligning itself with international emissions and safety standards – and since 2000 European technical rules have been the basis for Indian vehicle regulations – on safety in particular it still falls well short.
Tata, which has the only crash-test facility in the country, said that the Nano “exceeds current regulatory requirements”. And while it is not a deathtrap – it has crumple zones, seat belts and strong seat anchors – it is worth bearing in mind that total vehicle crash testing (rather than just frontal impact), airbags and antilock braking systems are not mandatory.
Without these, the Nano would not even be considered for approval in Britain. Adding them would double its price in India, which is why they have been omitted.
Double the price for airbags and ABS? The Nano being a death trap? Hell, it’s considered something of an massive environmental disaster too.
Environmentalists are broadly attacking the Nano and its progeny as disaster for climate. More cars means choked streets and more emissions. With a population of nearly 16.5 million, Delhi now adds 650 new vehicles to its roads each day. At last count, there were 5.4 million vehicles in all, a more than fivefold increase in 20 years, writes Somini Sengupta in the IHT.
Nobel Prize winner Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was quoted this week as saying he was “having nightmares” about the car.
But here’s the wild part.
But Tata engineers say the vehicle meets Indian pollution standards and emits 120 grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. That’s far below the current European average of around 160 grams per kilometer. And that makes it especially awkward for consumers and policymakers in the West to criticize India for using its new-found prosperity unfairly.
Indeed. Similarly environmentally friendly cars with low emissions in the US are ten times the Nano’s price. But the car’s a “disaster for the environment” because…why? An American or European or Japanese company isn’t building it?
If an American company built a car like the Nano, it would be hailed as the future of the US automotive industry in a global marketplace. Instead, the cheapest US car in India is four times the price of the Nano, the Chevy Aveo at over $10k. Hey, Tata’s in talks to buy Jaguar from Ford. The Jaguar Nano in our future, possibly?
Look at it this way. Gas prices are expected to be $3.50-$4.00 a gallon this spring and summer, and that’s if Bush doesn’t do anything stupid with Iran. They’ll be even more expensive another 5 years from now, I guarantee it. More and more Americans will be at the point where they will not be able to afford the gas to drive to work to make the daily commute. How quickly will Americans demand a car like the Nano when the cost of 40 gallons of gas a week — 2 tanks of gas for two cars — to get the kids and the dog and the family around to and from school and work is more than you earn take home from working 40 hours?
And hey, all those Indians with Nanos? That’ll just increase the demand, giving the energy companies the excuse to jack up the price even faster. Sure, the Nano will only roll a quarter million off the line in the first year — less than a fraction of one percent of all the cars just in the US — but that means India will need more oil! Gotta increase price!
We laugh at the Nano now. Americans love their big cars. Hell, I have a 13 year old Mercury V8. But odds are pretty good that ten years from now you’ll be driving something remarkably like the Nano. Odds are also pretty good that it will cost close to what a standard new car goes for today: $15,000 or so. It will be tiny. It’ll be uncomfortable.
And it will remind you of the fact there’s no middle class in America anymore. Just lords and serfs. you won’t be able to afford the gas for a bigger car. Hell, with inflation and the collapse of the dollar, you won’t be able to afford the bigger car at all. Those of you that HAVE jobs will be happy to drive something like the Nano to get to work on that two hour plus commute. Beats walking!
So don’t laugh at the cute little Nano. The car that will help create a middle class in India over the next decade may be the car that the “middle class” in America will be lucky to have in the next decade…those of us that still have jobs that aren’t being outsourced and filled by people in India driving to work in their Nanos.
Put THAT in your tailpipe.
The Nano is the car of India’s future…and most likely our own as well.
