Slashdot Mirror
$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."
Unbelievable! Especially since the Punto is only 8 times as expensive. You are comparing apples and golden oranges.
... 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.
Having driven in India, I'm damned if I'd buy one there, either. I would not feel safe in anything less than a heavy tank.
Rover's 'CityRover', (a re-badged Tata), was a failure in the UK, being panned for virtually everything.
Still, some people in the West have bought the appalling 'Gee Whizz', which lets you have windscreen wipers, or lights, on a rainy night - but not both. It also virtually guarantees that you perish in the inevitable accident. If you want all-electric, get a Tesla, (rather pricy, though)
The Smart car is much safer, but a commercial failure.
BTW, the Beetle was not VW's idea - it was Hitler's. VW was created to produce the Beetle, which was designed by Dr. Porsche, (who also did other fun stuff like Panzers).
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.
I have seen the roads in India, specifically Chennai and Mumbai, and cars like this can improve safety. I saw many little 150cc motorcycles with 3, 4, even 5 people on them tooling around. Many of the bikes with only two people had a woman on the back with a sari, just waiting to get caught in the rear wheel. In fact, one of the accessories for Indian motorcycles is a sari guard, designed just for this purpose.
These new cars are probably a lot safe than the auto-rickshaws running everywhere also.
$2,500 may not seem much to a USA citizen, but it is a huge mount to many Indians. Motorycles are in the $700 range, so this is a 400-500 percent increase when factoring in taxes, etc. New USA motorcycles above 650cc are in the $5,000 and up range, new cars are only about 2.5 to 3 times more expensive.
I applaud Tata motors for bringing to India an automobile that addresses safety and pollution concerns. Would I buy one?? If I could commute completely on city streets, which I can, then yes. You can't buy a used motorcycle of any size in the US for $2,500. Right now, I ride my motorcycle to work as often as I can (probably at least 4 out of 5 days), but even in Phoenix it rains sometimes. For those days, I have to depend on a truck that gets 20 mpg. What a waste for one person, I would rather look into one of these.
And don't tell me about SmartCars. They cost over $20K. I'm not spending that for a car I would use 10 or 15 times a year.
I rarely read replies, it's my opinion and if you thought about your opinion a little more, I'm OK with that.
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.
Actually usually you'd measure it as 4.4 L/100km.
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.
Your BMW is a diesel, which is not comparable because it uses higher compression on a more energy-dense fuel, and is thus inherently more efficient. Instead, realize that everybody is comparing to a gasoline car, and thinks it's impressive because they're used to 30 mpg or less.
Of course, the real reason it's not impressive is that even non-hybrid gasoline cars, such as the Honda CRX HF and 3-cylinder Geo Metro, were capable of getting fuel economy in the 50 mpg range 15 years ago or so, and did it with more horsepower.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Well, since 1 HP is the power to lift 33,000 lbs one foot in one minute, 30 hp should be able to lift 990,000 pounds one foot in one minute. Assuming that the car weighs in at roughly 2500 pounds, and four jumbo sized American occupants of 300 pounds each, we have a total weight of 3700 pounds, which a 30 HP engine should be able to raise 267 feet/minute, exclusive of frictional losses, especially air turbulence over relatively flat terrain.
An extremely steep public road might have a grade of 15% (rise over horizontal distance, or roughly 8.5 degrees slope. Traveling a measured mile along such a road yields an elevation gain of 780 feet, which might indeed prove a challenge for our 30 hp engine with our four sumo sized occupants, which exclusive of losses is capable of gaining that altitude in a bit under three minutes. However, there are very few straight roads this steep; if we assume lots of switchbacks and hairpin turns, an average speed of fifteen mph or so is not utterly unreasonable, although people who live at the top of such a hill might opt for a more powerful car.
A very steep section of highway might have a grade of 5% or maybe 7%. A measured mile at 7% is a gain of 370 feet and our engine could lift our sumo crew that height in one minute, twenty three seconds, limiting our speed to around 44mph on this stretch theoretically. Let's say we have a continuously variable transmission, or at least one that is appropriate to this car, we might end up limited to 30 mph on this stretch.
Of course, with a single, 250 pound occupant, our engine could raise the car and occupant 370 feet in 62 seconds. Since that would be almost 60mph over our measured mile, our actual speed would be limited by aerodynamic, frictional losses, and the ability of a rudimentary transmission to keep the engine in its power band, but assuming that the transmission is designed for efficient operation in the 30-40 mph speed range, it shouldn't be impossible for a single commuter to achieve speeds of 45mph over such a stretch of highway. Given that this piece of highway probably has a climbing lane, this vehicle would not be impractical for a single occupant, provided he'd rather have fifteen grand in his pocket from the purchase of the car than fifteen mph on that stretch of road. Not to mention the cost of gas.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.