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$2500 Tata Nano Car Unveiled in India
theodp writes "After months of rumors and tantalizing leaks, Tata Motors has finally unveiled the Tata Nano, its already legendary $2,500 car that promises to change the face of not only the Indian car market, but the global auto industry. The tiny car is a four-door, five-seat hatch, powered by a 30 hp engine that gets 54 miles per gallon."
Ralph Nader just fell out of his chair.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Nice to see the VW idea (small affordable car for The People) keeping on. Also nice to see that the low horsepower is there, after all, horsepower is for those who can't keep their speeds up in the corners.
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
When I hear the phrase "$2500 tatas", cars isn't the first thing that comes to mind.
Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
Small potatoes.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
That's pathetic. There's cars several times more bigger and more powerful than that which can do better. For example, the Fiat Punto 1.3 Multijet diesel gets a combined figure of 63 miles per (British) gallon. It produces about 70BHP.
Because of all the security concern & security upgrade which would be needed to bring it up par to our own security standard.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Link to article at the FoxNews web site:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,321567,00.html
I found the comments from the Greens very enlightening. Notice the lack of joy for the poor who will now be able to drive.
Their comments fall in the "let them eat cake" category.
"Man is nothing without the works of man" -- Helvetius
PROGRESS AT LAST!
India is a developing country. Pollution does not exist, along with child labor, substandard wages, and living conditions.
The only thing new in this world is the history that you don't know.[Harry Truman]
because the Nano's bra is the only one I have any chance of taking off. (No, I don't live in my parents' basement, I am married with young kids. The effect on one's sex life is the same.)
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
Instead use "the alleged car".
You're thinking of Stalin. Anyway, what's it's top speed? If it's 15 mph, no thinks.
It's not enough that they make terrible printers and now this...
We already know that this car doesn't have things like power strearing but does it have things like air bags and ABS and meet the same saftey requirements for Europe (and anywhere else with strong safety requirements)
and I dread to think what the build quality is like!
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
hmmm, thats a mighty small crumple zone that the passengers all sit in.
no thanks, if I wanted a micro city car then I'd get a SMART. at least that has a safety tridon cage around the passengers, and does better mpg. it also performs surprisingly well on the safety test. though on an impact I would put my money on the other car...
One that comes to mind is the Yugo. There have been several others all of which were underpowered and unsafe. There's just so much steel you can buy for that much money and just so much power you're going to get out of an over sized lawn mower engine. It could go a long way to solving India's population problems but there has to be better ways of dealing with that than road attrition.
... Besides being the largest car company in India according to this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Motors
They are in the process of buying Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080103.wford0103/BNStory/Business
It also owns pieces of Daewoo to boot. They're not a small player. The big three might want to take notice.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
I think this car would fare better in city markets. They can be used as taxis and replace the gas guzzling V8 Taxis that take up the road in NYC. With the size of the car being small, this can put more cars on the road.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
Heard about this on NPR and they said the top speed is ~50 miles per hour.
This post climbed Mt. Washington.
I don't want to be the boob that gets seen in this thing.
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
It's a two cylinder, four stroke engine. I misread that the first time too. From TFA: 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.
Now India has its own Nano, much bigger in size and not so big in price than Apple Nano :)
Tatas have done truly imaginative work for making India proud. A 4 seater family car, with great mileage for just $2500 and produces lesser pollution than bikes, confirms all safety tests and 21% more interior space.
A true masterpiece for a families who had to ride on bikes in a unsecured way, in weathers like rain, an extreme hot conditions.
What Reliance has done for telecommunication, Tatas has done for Automobiles. I am looking when govt. will look for making broadband available for 2$ and looking forward the way the world will change by OLPC and Asus Eee PC and wikipedia.
There seems to be lots of hype about it being efficient with it capable of doing 54mpg, but...
My BMW 320d Touring can do 57.6 mpg (combined cycle) according to the official figures (which is probably the same method that they came up with 54mpg). Since the Tato Nano should weigh so much less than my Beamer, I'd expect it to be more efficient, not less...
I can't find any technical specs for the Nano anywhere to know how the 54mpg was measured, but even if it's in the urban cycle, the BMW does 46.7mpg, which isn't that much less to say all the extra room, safety (and probably comfort) that you get from it.
OK, the BMW is considerably more expensive, but the way the Tato Nano is being written about you'd think 54mpg was so amazingly efficient it's newsworthy, when it isn't (at least by European standards)... The price is, but nothing else.
...and it's called diesel. However, we have politicians too stupid to see that diesel powered vehicles can get the gas mileage consumers demand while burning cleaner than gasoline combustion engines can like environmentalists want. Stupid states like California and Massachusetts outright ban these vehicles for new car sales. If diesel is so awful, I saw no evidence of that on a recent trip to Paris where diesel cars are everywhere. Diesel also offers a path to biodiesel through conversion kits which could ultimately smooth the transition to a renewable energy source that a)helps the U.S. economy and b)helps lower carbon emissions dramatically.
Parent is refering to Volkwagen, which means "People's Car" in German. They were Hitler's idea. (wow, I can mention Hitler and not pull a Godwin).
For more see: Wikipedia.
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government. -edward abbey
I can't wait until the sport compact crowd gets a hold of the Nano. Who's going to be first to slap a VTEC sticker on the back?
Okay, so who can imagine this car parked in front of a black background, slightly steaming, with Robin Williams popping out of it in a garish 1970s striped shirt? He can rant about oddities of the human condition, and close with an odd hand-gesture saying Nano, Nano.
Yes, I watched too much television as a youth. I liked that show until I saw Jonathan Winters in a diaper. Oy!
[
This is why I'm generally optimistic about the future: because if we can't do something in the United States, at least we've reached the point where someone, somewhere will find a way. We utterly failed to regulate the OS market by giving Microsoft little more than a slap on the wrist, but the EU seems to have its priorities straight, and has forced the company to open some of its key protocols. In the US our cars are pricey gas guzzlers because it's one of the markets that progresses the most slowly, but this Indian company has no qualms about turning the entire market upside down. Good for them.
I've been waiting for these little micro-cars to come out on the market. I had high hopes for the "Smart Car", but it's price is up around $12,000, and now they are down to 40MPG or so.
I think we are entering a phase of American driving where people will have a tiny, one-person, gas-sipping commuter car to go to work every day, and a "family car" for long-distance travels on the weekends.
And before everyone freaks out about the safety, I figure it's safer than a motorcycle.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
at all. ;)
Seriously though.. seems like a bargain. Wonder how much it will cost us outside india when import duties are added and whaterver other charges the govt. piles on in various parts of the world.
Ha-ha!
Grainy Video from the floor plus pics and an examination of what Tata had to cut out to make the price.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
You do know that people do not wear helmets while driving motorcycles, even on highways ignoring the laws, which exists against such driving.
Nano will be definitely a much safer proposition, even if they don't use the provided seat belts. Talking about Air Bags is luxury. Even medium level cars don't have those in India, and I am sure in many developing countries around the world, where they are thinking of exporting it.
A simple car is like open hardware, anybody can fix it.
they'll make jags out of rejects from the beer can on wheels.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
This useless comment is just so I can undo a moderation where it looks like I selected the wrong item from the drop-down list. Doh! Stupid scroll wheel!
Tata Nano?
Listen making mp3 players smaller == good
Making Tatas smaller == bad
I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended
--A wise old fart named SC0RN
"oh my god, I CAN AFFORD THIS!!!" Doesn't seem like it'll ever make it to the States though... doesn't it have to be over a certain size and emit a lot more pollutants into the air?
Just hitch a horse to the front like they did in that Borat movie.
Fuel efficient for me means that you take a car like a Honda, same size, same HP and create something in the same range but consumes less than it's competition.
here we have a car not much bigger than a little tike plastic car with a 30hp motor that burns 4gallons of gas for 86 km or 56 milles.......that's about normal consumption for a car that size, nothing to be impressed about anything here except the price.
Things just keep getting smaller.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I could buy 2 and use them as powered roller skates
I'd be the same, but for the families that drive with 4 people on a motor scooter in India this is a vast improvement in safety.
First, to all the Diesel supporters out there (I'm one too, currently driving my fifth one, and I keep them a long time.) The real reason that the US hardly sees European advanced Diesels, and that India can't use them, is that they don't have the refining and distribution capability to make the fuel needed by advanced car Diesels. There is a reason why my car has a 4-valve per cylinder DOHC with common rail and variable vane turbo, and my boat has the same engine with two valves per cylinder and produces one third of the horsepower. The boat will run on heating oil. The car needs low sulfur fuel with plenty of additives.
Second, to all the "this is underpowered, this is dangerous" mob out there. The alternative is either people hanging off a scooter, or a powered tricycle with no safety features whatsoever. This thing is a huge advance. Thirty HP is plenty for India, where acceleration has to take place in the middle of slow moving traffic, and where the motorway speed limit is 60.
Also, you may not have realised that the quoted fuel consumption of cars is on a special test cycle. American cars with their hugely over-horsepowered engines (often using a 2 litre plus engine where the Europeans would use 1300cc, and around 200HP where we would use 100) exceed the EPA consumption as soon as you put your foot down, yet most of the power can never be legally used for more than a few seconds. A limited capacity, limited power engine will in reality get better MPG simply because you cannot use it to waste fuel in rapid acceleration followed by heavy braking.
It seems to me that what this demonstrates is that Indians are capable of thinking about what works for their society, which is their huge advantage over most of the Third World.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The same sized engine in a Caterpillar Cub Cadet 4x4. Basically it's a modified tractor motor. The really interesting part is the CVT. For those of you who aren't familiar a CVT is a continuous variable transmission, a smooth shiftless automatic. If you have a scooter you know how great that is to not have to shift or clutch or anything.
Sorry, but have you seen the pictures in the articles? This itty bitty car might be great for Indian and Asian people, who weigh all of 85 pounds - or the Olsen twins. But NO WAY is it going to fit the broad asses of a country like the US, where over half the populace is considered overweight and the average height is over 70" tall.
Dell's support service is about to go from "bad" to "dead".
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Forget the Tata Nano, I'm waiting for the Tata Shuffle. No steering wheel, solid metal sheet for a windshield, and drives off in a random direction every time you hit the gas pedal.
Can't be much worse than the way people already drive.
It's called "The People's Car" because if one of these glorified roller skates with a lawn mower engine hits a pedestrian, it won't do any damage.
50 mph max speed? Pathetic. What a little piece of crap the Tata Nano is.
Yugo v2.0
I think Tata is just giving them a bigger bicycle.
Forget the Nano. In America we prefer our Tatas Giga-size. They just use more plastic and come from California.
http://www.zenncars.com/
Hell, it would fit in your pocket...
sig goes here!
Really?
I heard there are waiting lists for them in the US. I do see a fair number buzzing around Ontario...
They are very popular in Europe.
Did you just say you're waiting for GOVERNMENT to make broadband available for $2???
.. how the hell can you look to it for services? Also, because the money has to come from SOMEWHERE .. government operates on taxation of acheivers and theft of natural resources. It has to steal from one person to give to another. At least people have a choice whether to purchase a service from a corporation. When government does something, they ban anybody from competing with them and they use other people's money to provide those services that the private industry would provide far more efficiently and compete without using force to enforce their monopoly. The government couldnt provide phone service to everyone .. private industry had to do it. Government is only supposed to enforce laws and prevent fraudulent activity .. not provide services and block people from starting their own enterprises. It's against freedom to have government be the only entity that can provide a certain service, and also people should be allowed to make their own choices and government has no business punishing those who get rich by providing important services to the people -- people need to be rewarded for their business ideas that work. That is what encourages work, trade, and other stuff that boosts the economy.
Government can barely govern
With european anti-car taxes, that would make about 15000 euros then?
That is the biggest roller skate I have EVER seen!
And suddenly it doesn't look that unsafe, the mileage is comparable to a big hog 2 seater but it seats 4 and is all weather.
For $2500 I think it's a deal. They don't even list it's top speed though so we don't know if it's freeway rated. Can it even get to 50 MPH with 4 people in it?
Reminds me of that Simpsons episode where Nelson makes fun of the little car and the huge guy steps out: "Everyone deserves an automobile..." then pants him and makes him walk down the street while everyone laughs... hehehehe... good times.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
At $2500, a vehicle like this would be worth buying just for hacking.
You could take the engine out without a block and tackle, carry it into your apartment, and mess with it on your kitchen table. You could play around with different engines about as easily as you swap a video card in your computer, playing around with Stirling engines or electrical motors or series hybrid configurations, with the the help of a local machine shop, or with after market kits.
When I was a kid, nearly everybody could do a little work on cars, and everybody at least knew somebody who did fairly major maintenance to their cars, and it was not at all uncommon for people to redesign various aspects of their cars, from boring out their carb jets to monkeying around with their suspension. Today cars are really, really good, and really really reliable. There just isn't much incentive to muck with a $30,000 machine that is pretty damned good already.
But at $2500, it'd be worth doing just for curiosity, not to mention much easier given the small size of the thing.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
54 miles per gallon = 22.9577601 kilometers per liter
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
I would SO buy one! 6.5 Miles to work.
It would be perfect for me.
This list is not complete with the C116. Terrible, terrrrible. Glad those days are over. ;)
I don't want more poor people driving. Or more rich people.
I would prefer it if MUCH fewer people needed to drive in the first place.
As I write this, I'm living in one American suburb, working in another, and am forced to burn fossil fuels just to buy a gallon of milk at the nearest store. I'm dependent on liquified dinosaurs. Walking to said shop from my house would probably only take 15 minutes tops, if a safe footpath existed. (I don't consider a freeway overpass without a pedestrain walkway to be adequate, thank you.) But no-o-o-o, my country decided to build communities around a single point of failure, the availability of cheap hydrocarbons.
The only reason why the new Tata may be a positive development for us in the West is if its energy-saving techniques actually make it to our markets. Otherwise, it's just another case of the inefficient, resource-hungry American lifestyle being appropriated overseas -- and in case you're wondering, no, that is not good news for this planet.
"Hatred" my ass. Read the sig if you need further clues.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
hit an object that doesn't crumple in a SMART car and the results will not be pretty.
The key thing I remember from talking to a SMART distributor was how well it fared in accidents with OTHER cars. When some of us asked about fixed objects they kept going back to car versus car.
A car with such a limited crumple zone as the SMART is going to transmit more energy to the occupants upon impact, there simply isn't enough car there to do anything.
Besides the car was woefully underpowered requiring near lead footing to use on the highway... meaning shitty mileage for something that weighs in at 1800lbs
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
old new again but not cool http://www.microcarmuseum.com/tour/fuldamobils-6.html
Isn't that what Volkswagen means?
One of the big difference is that, while Yugo was a state planned shit, Tata is actually answering market demand, and is a highly successful firm.
And they are probably going to buy Jaguar an Land Rover from ford. 10 years from now, Tata will be everywhere in the US. People making fun of the car are the same person who did it with Japanese cars decades ago.
\u262D = \u5350
Because one of the little dirty secrets of the Clean Air act was to exclude about everyone other than passenger cars from the rules. They specifically excluded diesel from the rules as the manufacturers were claiming small number of vehicles, poor farmers, and limited impact. Most likely a front for the oil industry.
Does Sweet Crude ring a bell? Specifically named for lack of sulfur which was the major contaminate in diesel.
The oil industry had the chance to make diesel the fuel of the future but their bean counters got in the way. They have known for ages (since McKinley's time) how to remove sulfur from the fuel BUT THEY DID NOT WANT TO. they did it for speciality uses (kerosene lamps so they would not catch fire or stink) but not vehicles. As such states like California went after them, specifically because nearly a dozen of the contaminents in heavy sulfur diesel fuel are carcinogens. Worse studies showed that air in diesel school buses was worse than the air around them!
Diesel had a futre but the industry got greedy and now will pay for it. Its not going to be until 2010 that we have mandatory clean diesels. Hell the current ones put out contaminents that hard catalytic converters.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/content/dec2007/db20071220_511151.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_companies
I think that question has already been raised. However, Hitler remains unavailable for comment.
I keep trying to pick fights, but I can't shake this Excellent karma.
And to think - this mob who I first saw ripping off Toyota Hilux designs, could soon be the proud? owners of Jaguar :)
You must like the smell of particulate matter. There's a reason diesel cars smell bad. Heck, that's one of the biggest complaints about bio-diesel----the smell of french fries. Yuck! The last thing I want to do is drive behind one of those fartmobiles and come out smelling like I've been working at a fast food restaurant all day.
All I hear is discussion about how much this car lacks and how much better all other cars are.
Is anyone going to look at the price and say "Wow finally I could afford this car!" Or are we all spoiled to a point where price does not matter? I think that price is the greatest achivement of this car company.
Imagine getting a loan for the cheapest new car that currently exists and paying it off for next 3-5 years. This car is cheaper than almost any motorcycle you could possibly buy. I could buy it with my petty cash and use it for every day commute to work and I bet insurance for this car would be next to nothing as it's only worth $2.5K to have whole car replaced.
Other car companies should be very afraid. One thing we can expect to come in next few years thanks to this car (if it ever reaches North America due to politic involved selling such a cheap car) - cheap, fuel efficient cars for everyone!
If this car was introduces to North America there would be huge implications on every aspect of our society starting from public transit (not being cost effective way of travel anymore) to lack of roads (due to number of these cars being on the roads), to people traveling greater distances to work (low cost suburban living and low cost of transportation), to mayor North American automakers and massive layoffs to come, including sky rocketing gas prices (increasing MPG but increasing numbers of cars on road - high gasoline demand)... etc.
I somehow doubt that this car will ever get close to North American shores. Or if it does it's starting cost will be $10K which does not make it worth anymore.
Here's an excerpt from an interview of Mr Tata. He is basically doing for the lower-middle class Indian families, what Henry Ford did for the middle class American families.
Tata said, "I observed families riding on two-wheelers -- the father driving the scooter, his young kid standing in front of him, his wife seated behind him holding a little baby. It led me to wonder whether one could conceive of a safe, affordable, all-weather form of transport for such a family."
Not much difference.
"that makes the Nano the first time a 2-cylinder gasoline engine will be used in a car with a single balancer shaft."
I am very curious as to what they mean with this since I am dorking around with analysis on vibrations of such configurations for a living right now.
A single balance axle makes no sense, it only turns the phase of the vibration direction. You are better off without one at all.
Unless the cylinders are vertical, since then the vibrations would be vertical without a balance axle, causing the car to jump on the suspension. One balance axle might phase the vibrations horizontally instead, causing less power loss through viscoelastic dampening.
I am intrigued.
Not in Europe, anyway. It doesn't EU emision standards. I don't know about US emision standards, but I thought the ones in California were even stricter than the ones in the EU.
The longer a discussion continues on a forum, the closer to 1 the probability comes that someone will mention Hitler or Nazis.
No wonder why they call this thing a Tata, its a freaking death box. One fender bender and tata you're toast.
It will get 400 hectares on a single tank of kerosene!
the growth of car ownership in India is going to be one of the worst disasters to hit that country. Just like in China, where car ownership for a billion people is destroying millions of acres of land (roads) and eating up untolds amount of oil. Driver's ed is non-existent, the roads are awful, there are no rules on the road. If you've ever been to India and driven on the roads (and I'm not talking about the insane cities streets) you'll find out very quickly how terrifying that drive can be. Putting a billion more people in cars is not the way to a good future - not for India and not for the rest of the planet. Building a cheap ass car like this will only doom us faster...
THe automotive world is not exactly the same in the whole of the western world, and the world is even bigger than western countries.
Europe: Brand is an important factor. Do you want to drive a sturdy German car, A fat american, an reliable japanese car, or a stylish italian car. I am sure there is a market there where these nano car will have some customers.
USA: IS it comfortable (to lay )? if the answer is no you will not sell. Fuel economy (rules) might be a reason to sell.
Asia: groupthink, if someone else drives it i will drive it. and it might be an alternative for 2 wheel vehicles as it is promoted in the press release.
Afrika: cheap cars might be an option here. But can it handle bad roads of underdeveloped countries?
I do not know the market of south America.
I am not sure if rules in USA/Europe will allow the security of this car for the price they set in India.
Stubear,
There used to be big differences between diesel sold in the US and diesel sold in Europe. US diesel was until last year(?) much dirtier, lots of sulfur, etc.
With the changes to diesel fuel in the past year, it's now just a new matter of getting states to accept the European diesels. Beware though, that most auto emissions standards also include specific technology requirements that the European diesel motor makers just don't feel are necessary.
I'll wait for the next generation car. I've got to have an email client in my ride; apologies to the University of Washington :)
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
If you don't want "butt jewelry" as they call it, finding something under $2500 should be easy. Of course if you can only ride it half the year, it's probably not worth the extra cost of insurance, titling, and capital other than for sake of entertainment.
Suggestions for version 2.0:
1) Make it 90% electric and 10% biofuel. I only do not say 100% because in India, even in the most modern cities, power goes out like once every couple of weeks or more.
2) Make a 100% electric one and sell it in China!
If this is done successful (millions sold) in these 2 countries, we may be able to overcome a major environmental hurdle & TATA should deserve a Nobel for that.
3) Get the government to subsidize this thing big time. Bring the price down to 0.25 lahks (~$750) and you will see major adoption. $2500 still WAY too expensive in India
4) Make 100% of parts recyclable & provide locations to do this in major urban cities. That said, Indians are pretty good at using something until it is completely broken and unrepairable. Nearly all buses in Mumbai look like they are from pre-world war II !
5) Make a door-less version & 100% electrical with "wind-up option" (in case electricity fails in city), and force by law diesel rickshaws to use this instead. Polution in cities will be cut back by 90% if you do this!
6) Make the horn 50% less loud (at least!). You almost need earplugs to drive around Indian cities.
7) Make damn well sure it is waterproof; as in, it can be submerssed in 4 feet of water (monsoon seasons) and not leak inside.
Adeptus
No trees were killed in the making of this post; however, many trillions of electrons were horribly inconvenienced.
you better track this product!
Here's my take on this:
http://randomjunkyramblings.blogspot.com/2008/01/product-tracking-tata-nano.html
You have got to admit- its an exciting event!
Think again there regarding "conversion kits". In Sweden I had a Saab 9-3 1.9 TiD with Alfa Romeo's Common Rail diesel engine in it. That thing would do 17 km per litre (by comparison the Tata does 20 km for every litre of regular gas), even while cruising the highway at 150kph. At 224 kph it would start using a bit more fuel (gasp!). You read that right. 224 kilometers / hour. Because it would deliver a staggering 150 bhp. Which is a lot from a Diesel engine. Think TORQUE.
On top of being a glorious ride, the thing was prepared for Bio diesel from the factory. I could drive it to any pump that had rape-seed oil and use that at 95% efficiency without further conversion. On top of that it was built like a tank.
By contrast I moved to Israel where I see a lot of chevvy's on the road. Nasty little lo-tech cars with bad steering and abominable mileage. Seems like the US ceased to be a developing country, er?
Mercedes Diesels are very clean. They also have more torque (read: oomph) than most gasoline models and give you better mileage at the same time. Seems like the ideal car for the U.S. to me.
The article doesn't say how many gears this little car has and whether it has a reverse gear too. It's small enough to manaually push it backwards...hmmm I wonder.
Seriously if I could actually get this thing for $2500 CDN I'd be stupid not to buy it. I spend way more then that on stupid useless gadgets and food all year round.
I also live 10min from work. Although my 74 bmw 2002 only requires to have its tank filled up every 5-6 days I'd only use the Nano to drive to work.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Draw your own conclusions.
sorry, cant remember how to do a hyperlink
http://vincentbasile.blogspot.com/2007/10/smallest-car-ever.html
"Neo, follow the white rabbit"
"Can i eat the white rabbit?"
"No, there is no spoon to eat it with"
I think everything sounds like, but I also concern about the crash safety rating. Is it mentioned anywhere?
Reminds me of the Polish Fiat 126p. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_126
To everyone who thinks the Tata Nano is underpowered, that car had 24hp, and was capable of hauling 4 people. It wasn't comfortable, but it worked. It climbed mountains (I was personally in one of those as it climbed to some small village in the Alps). And it consumed very little fuel - around 40 gpm, I think. And since nobody was comparing it to huge western cars, it was just fine. Read the link.
I think this car will be the bomb, and will be imitated by other car manufacturers in India.
m
With CO and NO, it is true that the USA starting reducing them much earlier. But Europe has introduced the catalytic converter about 15 years ago, and the emission requirements for cars (except CO2) are now at a point where further reducing them seems pointless - better go after the emissions of oil-fired heatings first, those have no countermeasures so far.
Considering CO2, America always had the bigger and more wasteful cars with CO2 emissions to match. Because CO2 emissions are directly proportional to the amount of fuel you burn.
The Kyoto protocol is about reducing CO2 emissions to limit global warming, something the USA are still very reluctant to do. But maybe the $100/barrel price for crude oil will do what US politicians don't want to do.
BTW there is also some controversy in the EU about CO2 emission requirements for cars. The current proposal would be no problem for small cars, but BMW and Daimler with their heavy luxury cars would have a problem. Those companies are opposing CO2 emission requirements as much as a typical conservative US politician.
C - the footgun of programming languages
>The problem is social, not technical.
>Americans "need" to drive these huge cars to work and back.
I've heard rumors of $4/gallon by summer.
This is going to change a lot of people's habits very quickly. It has certainly changed mine. I used to be all about horsepower. Now I'm all about mileage.
I'm looking for 60MPG+, 50MPH+, 150 mile range, rain or shine capable. Ideally it should cost less than $10,000, but closer to $5,000. Electric would be nice, too.
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
He had a column on this on Nov. 4th.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/04/opinion/04friedman.html?_r=1&em&ex=1194411600&en=d3e0516ef56cf8fe&ei=5087%0A&oref=slogin
Though he makes some good points, I like the car better then 2-wheelers because it is safer and according to reports pollution levels are lesser than 2-wheelers although it doesn't say what model 2-wheeler they compared with. But if you think traffic in big Indian cities is bad, wait until this hits the road.
the deer would make more an impact on the truck, then the hyundai. It was a piece of crap.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
50 mph max speed? Pathetic.
True, but considering the average speed in London is like 18 mph, I think there is a market for it.
My little Linux and tech blog
Just like the apocryphal story of the Chevy "Nova" not selling in Latin America because "no va" means "won't go", the name "Tata Nano" won't fly in (french) Canada, because both "Tata" and "Nono" (yes, it's an "o") mean "moron", "stupid" or "idiot" in french-canadian slang...
The vibration of a parallel twin is not solely up and down, as anybody who ever experienced a British motorcycle of the 50s or 60s will be well aware. The flywheel cannot be totally balanced for the weight of the big ends. The trick is the combination of the balancer shaft and the flywheel balancing. Of course the internal loads on the crankcase are fairly high, but given the ability of the Bukh to run many thousands of hours between overhauls, obviously not insurmountable.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Did they really list tubeless tires as a safety feature? Is India really so behind in technology that tubeless tires are special? Granted I live in America, but this is the first time in my life I've ever heard somebody seriously suggest or imply that any even slightly modern car would use anything else.
after the success of monstrously sized suvs in the 80s and 80s, here in the usa, the hummer or humvee became a success. it is a retooled military vehicle you need an escalator to climb into, and that can get into an accident with a vw bug and keep rolling as if you hit a speed bump. it can handle incredible grades, weather conditions, and high levels of water... but its mostly used to go to starbucks on the freeway
and yes, it gets 0.5 mpg, but we don't care about that. we're blissfully unawares
in light of the success of the hummer, i think we should commercialize for the public IED-resistance troop transports. this is the next logical evolution in american automobile tastes
perhaps put a nice cosmetic chrome on an armored car? make a real statement about your bling
but let's get real folks: with our massive use of petroleum, and our need to use more military force in order to ensure the supply, these two trends will eventually converge and become one. we will all drive to work in m1 abrams, and procure our own wells individually by force. this is the logical end game of the trend in car design and fashion in the usa.
here in america, we drive like we're in mad max 2:the road warrior. why? WHAT'S WITH THIS WHY SHIT?!
can i get this in red?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I can't finalize my opinion until Top Gear puts The Stig into one of these things, and races it against a Bugatti Veyron. Now that's scientific method, people!
Two words: Tata masher
[End Of Line]
In the 70's, my Dad used to drive a Chevy Chevette to work, and it cost about the same as this new car, and got comparable fuel millage, whats NEW about this car?????
If it don't GO... chrome it. ~ Frank Banks
Even sipping gas the way it does, put enough of these on the road in India and the cost of petrol will be so high that even BFAs (big fat americans) will start to drive these micro-cars.
I wonder if it would be feasible to do an electric mod to this car? Change it from 4 seat gasoline engine to a 2 seat electric?
I just bought a 12 year old Mercedes E300 for $6500 and I now run it on pure biodiesel. I could afford to buy one of these to toy with. The shipping would be prohibitive for me, however.
Those are bodacious Tatas!
Have gnu, will travel.
Right and that's why Belgium again had a nationwise speed limit due to particle smog from diesel cars.
There was even a government spokesman that told people to buy gas cars instead of diesels in the future.
Thanks but no thanks. You can keep your diesels.
While this car seems like a boon for the environment I bet it will turn out to be the opposite. At that price it won't have a catalytic converter (uses expensive metals) which means the exhaust will be full of the compounds that lead to smog. Italy has big problems in some cities from all the scooters running around pumping burned fuel straight into the air. Great gas mileage, sure, but dirty.
CommentBot 0.7a running with args "-module irritate,disagree -target random"
I see lots of them in the Italian cities. I owned one for a couple of years as it was the smallest car I could fit in comfortable (I'm 1.92 / 6.2ft). Apparently the integral seats saved me from backlash as I got rammed from behind at a traffic light. The car looked a mess, but was fixed within a day or so. It was one of the early models, very bouncy and wind sensitive on a wet road.
Air powered version will be available soon at about twice the price.
When I saw 'powered-entirely-by-curry' I was lol for 2 seconds before I thought it had a bit of a racist connotation. What makes this one in particular funny is your 'Amereken' obsession of equating Indian things with curry when we don't eat it any more often than you'd have pasta.
Hell, on a mostly US centric site it's nice to have the occasionally Indian article without it being tinged with geeky racism.
Damn, and I wanted to believe that 'geeky racism' was an oxymoron.
The second point is that in a straight multi cylinder engine it is well known that you use two balance shafts running at twice engine speed to reduce external secondary vibration, at the expense of wasted fuel and increased wear, but there is no point in doing this in a vertical twin where you use a single shaft. I'm sorry you think the DV24ME is an obscurity - thousands of marine engineers wouldn't - but the most recent design I'm aware of dates from the early 2000s, and is a petrol powered 1 litre parallel twin made by the German MZ company with single balance shaft.
If I wasn't recovering from flu I doubt I would have time to post all this stuff, but have you considered that the engine alone is only part of the vibration equation? Nowadays the mountings are a large part of the picture, and the vehicle manufacturers' simulations take this into account. It is therefore possible to make really quite smooth cars with 3-cylinder engines, such as the designs from Daihatsu, Volkswagen, and Mercedes. Just based on the engine dynamics, they would appear to have unacceptably large torque reactions and rocking couples, but in fact the short block length integrated into the entire prime mover package means that vibration can be remarkably well controlled.
I suggest you email your PDF to Tata. Perhaps they will get one of their engineers to explain things to you much better than I can. Somebody needs to, because the Wikipedia article on the subject is really a bit of a joke. Significantly, it does not mention the use of balance shafts on twins, but repeats a number of simple errors picked up from the Internet.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I have a VAZ-11113 "Oka" ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lada_Oka ) and its 32 hp engine is ok for driving in Moscow and around. It accelerates easily up to 110 km/h and it's possible to achieve 130 km/h on the good road (but kinda scary above 110-120). Once I got four passengers and we rode for about 200km and it wasn't that different from driving alone, it was just a little slower to accelerate... And it's very cheap to maintain.
19 and 32, especially, point to the conclusion that the "older guy on a Harley" is most definitely not more likely to suffer an accident. Younger riders are much more likely to be involved in accidents, as are less experienced riders of any age.
One thing the stats won't tell you, though, is how much of the greater safety of those older riders is that they have more experience, training, skills, and other things that can be taught, vs. how much is because some people are better at it than others and those with worse reflexes, vision, midnsets, attention spans, etc. were eliminated early through accidents.
Motorcycle accidents are common enough to be a significant chunk of "evolution in action".
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Nothing at all. He's not talking about horsepower, he's talking about hitpoints, usually abbreviated "hp" in role playing game terminology. Hitpoints are a measure of how much damage a character, vehicle, or object can take before being destroyed. (Yes, that's a simplification, so put away your weapons, rules lawyers.) If a car with only 30 hitpoints fought a car with 150 hitpoints, the 150 hp car would most likely win because it could take more damage before being destroyed.
No good deed goes unpunished. - Avon, Blake's 7
With a low enough gear ratio it could tow a 747 (just like in that advert...)
No sig today...
It would be great to drive to work. The price is right, and I normally drive my car just to and from work, no highway (although you can probably get on the highways anyway). Imagine how easy it would be to park !
http://i6.ebayimg.com/08/i/000/c5/bc/b5f4_1_sbol.JPG
Sadly I cant find a better image.
How is this indian car a marked improvement on this?
I'm betting the key to it is the light weight.
It's a cracking wee car, even with only 28BHP it's fun to drive and does 55MPG.
;)
:D
I have the later BIS model which because it has a flat twin engine has actually 2 boots (trunks for our American friends) so it's practical as well
I even did some motorsport once in it - http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2854796
Jonathan
Just the engineering and research required to come up with such a cheap car is going to help everyone that makes complicated machinery. In this way it is similar to the OLPC project. Not many of us first world geeks will directly use the product, but we will eventually benefit from the work involved in creating it.
Laura, You started with the negative comments....so think again about who's on the rag.
My advice to you is:
(1) stick to the topic
(2) don't say anything demeaning to others
Just apologize to that person and get over it.
Personally if I was looking for a good 1 lakh car ($2500) I would by a used 240 Volvo for around $1500 spend another grand on it and have a 114 horsepower tank that will last forever to a million miles get 30 to the gallon nearly 40 with a stick shift be a joy to drive and protect me and my family a heck of a lot better than the Tata ( goodbye ) sardine can.
Now that, Ralph and moi would Lahk sorry I mean like.
( : ( : pete
ideapete
Bio-fuel is bad.
In the US, even at are limited use of it, it is causing food prices to rise. I do not want my food price in direct relationship to the price of fuel.
Bio-fuels is a bad band-aid that makes things overall worse.
Focus on non-combustion technology.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The only way that's getting to the US is in the form of a glorified golf cart, which wouldn't be that bad for that kind of use. Otherwise it's not going to leave that part of the world.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
A basic problem if there are so many cars.
Seems that for every good intentioned project such as the cheap 1 Lahk ($2500) minicar to benefit India there is an immediate downside.
Look at this report on what farmers are saying about losing their land for the factory / plant that is going to build them
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9848763-7.html?tag=nefd.top
ideapete
I think this car is an amazing idea and a vast improvement over what most people in India drive.
Here are some photos of the types of traffic patterns one encounters in major cities like New Dehli and Jaipur. These were taken during a recent visit to the country.
http://picasaweb.google.com/jason.schlachter/IndianStreets2007
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Imaging driving this in the sweltering heat or in the raining season! Yes! I know people can take a lot of crap but in my part of the world (Nigeria) you can spend 2 hours on the road in the dusty heat just to get to a place that would take 15 to 20 minutes if the roads were not so congested.
Tata should just make AC standard in the peoples car and crank up the price to make up for added cost and they have a winner.
The only people I think will buy the standard version here might be dodgy transporters .
I'd consider a Nano for my commute within the city. At 54 MPG, I think that'd offset the extra diesal cost. I've read that safety & emmission standards will hinder the Nano's importation to the US though. I think the Nano would be at least as safe as a motorcycle at inner city speeds. I understand it wouldn't be well received by US Auto Manufacturers, maybe, they should make a silimiar version & stimulate the US economy. You can't get a new car in the US for less than 10K.