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World's Cheapest Car Goes On Sale In India
Frankie70 writes "The Tata Nano — the car that caught the world's imagination as the cheapest ever — will finally be rolled out commercially on Monday in Mumbai in a mega event organised by Tata Motors. Ben Oliver, contributing editor, Car Magazine, London test drove the car in December, 08. These were his first impressions. This was his verdict: 'CAR's first ride in the Tata Nano felt far more significant and exciting than a first drive in a Ferrari or Lamborghini, because this car's importance is immeasurably greater. It won't compete on dynamics or quality with European or Japanese city cars, but it doesn't have to. What Tata has achieved at an unprecedented price is astonishing, although we'd guess it will cost Indian consumers closer to £1700 when it finally goes on sale, six months late, in March 2009.'"
Those of us old enough to remember the 1980s remember the Yugo, which was touted then as the cheapest car ever: $3990 when they debuted in the U.S. in 1987 (bear in mind that the U.S. has much tougher safety and emissions standards than India).
It was tried here and failed miserably, especially after the general consensus among the consumer rags, especially Consumer Reports, was that you were better of with a used car than a new Yugo.
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I think Indian infrastructure is going to have a hard time coping with this.
Tried getting anywhere in New Delhi recently? A 10km ride can take HOURS. I'm not exaggerating or kidding. You will literally stand in one spot for half an hour. Nobody obeys traffic rules and gridlock is the norm.
The Indian middle class is looking to copy the west, and they want their SUVs and their tall lattes too.
In late afternoon in New Delhi (about 6:00pm or so), you can STARE AT THE SUN without feeling any queasiness in your eyes. That's how bad the pollution is.
Instead of looking to other cultures and trying to NOT make the same mistakes, India is eager to copycat them. Heh... you think Americans go a little bit overboard with the bling and the super-size-me? Just wait.. just wait.
-Laxitive
Seriously, look at it. 12" wheels, and how tall and narrow it is!
But looking at what it's designed for, it appears to be very well thought-out. Anyone that's driven in europe can understand why you need a narrow car because of the streets. And anything that gets your side mirror another half inch away from oncoming traffic's mirrors is a good thing, and then of course there's parking. (no mention of how well it turns to squeeze into a tight spot?) For an in-town car in a big city, it looks to be ideally suited. 60mpg? Heck I could use that right now.
It said it accomodates "six footers". I'm 6'2, I wonder if I'll be cracking my head on the roof?
Considering the next-to-nonexistent trunk, it's NOT a family trip car, unless you're a family of two. The back seat really IS the trunk, and the trunk is the glovebox.
But I wouldn't mind trying one. I wonder what it's top speed is, they only tested it to 60mph and it took 17 sec to get there, i wonder if it can do 70? I have to take an interstate to work here and it's 70 in places.
I'd also be interested to know its range. At 60mpg though, I wonder what speed that's at? Most larger cars, that's measured at highway speed (55?) and is lower for in-town. This car is targeted almost exclusively for in-town so that's not the number I want to hear. It's not a hybrid so it lacks the regenerative breaking bonus for in-town driving. (unless the thing's got a flywheel? heh) I'm picturing it getting more like 40mph in-town, and guessing at a 5gal tank, so that'd be about a 200 mile in-town range, which I could certainly live with. My exploder gets 300 miles on the highway, 240 in town. It'd shave 70% off my total at the pump too which would be wonderful.
The review was ok but missed a lot, I'd like to have seen 7 pages, not 2. Airbags I hope? looks to be manual only. (can you smell my clutch yet?) And it doesn't look like they let him drive it, which worries me a little.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Why not spend that money on decent public transportation? just because USA snobs poo-poo riding a bus or train does not mean the rest of the planet has that stick firmly planted in their rear ends as well...
The public transportation systems in many places need upgrading. Sounds like a better way to spend money than to enable more cars on the road. India already has a traffic nightmare in all it's major cities.. In Chennai, it's near suicide to step off the curb or to be in a car on those roads... How will this car help that?
Yes I'm a US citizen that has actually left his country and went to other places. Traffic in India is INSANE (France is even more insane!) and I cant see this car helping.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Which country would that be? Germany with BMW, Mercedes and Audi? Or rather a scandinacian one? Volvo comes to mind. And what about all the Japanese SUVs?
Meanwhile, my 99 Century Buick V6 needs less gas than a Mitsubishi Galant V6 from approximately the same year.
So what the hell is your point?
Yeah, and where are all the SUVs from those foreign car companies sold? You don't think Toyota started making SUVs to take advantage of the lucrative large-truck-in-Tokyo market, do you?
Oh sure they do sell in other markets, but the point is that nobody has latched onto the gas-guzzling needlessly-oversized truck and SUV like in America. And therefore nobody from there, including those driving Century Buicks, should be pointing fingers at Indians buying the cheapest car ever and saying "Hey you shouldn't do that!"
The enemies of Democracy are
Someone also mocks the Ferrari/Lamborghini comparison. Wrong. To an engineer - that's a real, chartered engineer, not just a jumped up mechanic - Ferraris and Lamborghinis are not very interesting. An example. Evolutionary biologists point out that horses are interesting, not because they are a successful design, but because they are a bit of a failed one. Very few of the world's species are horse based, whereas the beetle design, the bat design, and even the primate design have been wildly successful. (Or look at the dog design, which has proved amazingly flexible, scaling well to a wide range of sizes.) In the same way, few people are motivated to buy Ferraris, whereas the European small hatchback design has proven wildly successful and is the basis of most of the cars on the world's roads, scaling all the way from the Smart car to the "people carrier". The Tata design is interesting because it is likely to be the precursor of what most of the world's drivers are using in 20 years time.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
I understand the point you are intending, but consider whether your bashing 300,000,000 people with such a broad bat isn't the moral equivalent of those who "talk down" to the developing world.
Just because it is the path that America went down doesn't mean that it is the best path for other nations to follow.
Yes, and if India decides that they should follow a different path, then more power to them.
I think that the argument against giving them gas-powered cars is valid.
We aren't giving them anything, and thus it is not our choice to not give them. We are not the Greek gods, and Tata Motors is not Prometheus, okay?
It's the whole attitude here that pisses me off. I'd have no problem if people were saying "Hey India, look at what heavy adoption of cars at the expense of public transportation did to our country. You might want to think before making the same mistake we did." Instead, all I hear is this air of superior judgement, all "India shouldn't be given cars because they're going to fuck up the environment". It's the combination of the hypocrisy of ignoring or downplaying our own effect as polluter, with the sense of superiority where of course nobody can tell us what to do but we can decide whether India should be allowed to have cars that just reeks of hypocrisy and arrogance.
India already has the gift of fire-in-a-cylinder-with-a-piston. That djinni has been out of the bottle for a long time. And I don't see much to complain about with this particular incarnation. Compared to the fuel economy and emissions of the top gas and hybrid cars, it's competitive on fuel economy and emissions. Compared to the average car in the North American fleet, it's very good. Compared to the two-stroke engines running scooters and auto-rickshaws in the cities of India already, and which the Nano is priced to compete against, it is insanely great on emissions.
I think that India would be a perfect market for electric cars. I think that India would be a perfect market for electric cars. Electric cars are not big in America because the average American's commute exceeds the range and speed requirements for the average electric car currently in production.
Except an electric with enough juice for even a short commute is going to cost a hell of a lot more than the Nano. Yes, ICEs are not the ideal solution going forward. In the meantime, electrics serve some few needs, and hopefully will serve more in the future. In the meantime, if they want to improve their standard of living in a way that will be both affordable and get them halfway across the city and back or to the next town and back, and which will actually reduce emissions when it replaces the currently highly emissive vehicles that clog New Delhi, then who are you or I to say no? It's not like we're setting a better example, now are we? There's nothing wrong with discussing the issues, there is something wrong with riding a high horse while doing so.
The enemies of Democracy are
Pollution: [...] the contamination of the environment by harmful substances.
Yup, sounds like CO_2 qualifies. In spades. Sure it's a whole new mechanism for damage--not toxic, not carcinogenic, not a quick dose of nutrients to previously clear water, not ugly, etc--but it's certainly harmful!
Looks like the USA's per capita emissions of CO_2 are on the order of 10 times higher than China's (source: quick amalgam of Google results).
Some sources say that the USA leads in other pollutants as well (see http://www.crystalinks.com/pollution.html for a start, but I'm not happy with that page's rigour). That's no surprise given that the USA is a world leader in consumption and disposal of all kinds of goods--sheer volume overcomes good intentions. OTOH, I hear China is investing heavily in coal-fired power plants, which besides helping them to pull ahead in CO_2 will add a nice dose of mercury and some other nasties. Go team! There are lots of causes of pollution, and the USA comes out ahead on many of them.
Of course, the USA isn't doing too badly (relatively speaking) at controlling pollutants, although we're not doing especially well, either. Far better than China or India, AFAIK, although I'm not happy that my country is "better than the worst"!
This is an area I know little about. Do you have a better reference than what I found?
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