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RIP Tata Nano, the World's Cheapest Car (cnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the RIP dept.

From a report: Well, you guys, pour one out for the Tata Nano. The world's cheapest car is all but dead. According to Bloomberg, Tata Motors built one single Nano in June 2018. During the same month in 2017, Tata produced 275. As a final nail in the coffin, Tata told Bloomberg the car "cannot continue beyond 2019." The Tata Nano entered the Indian market in 2008 priced from just 100,000 rupees, or about $1,500. The price increased over time, and according to Tata Motors' website, an entry-level Nano starts at 236,447 rupees today, or $3,435 based on current exchange rates. Right from the get-go, the Nano was plagued with production issues, not to mention poor safety and dismal crash test results. The cars were also known to catch fire, which, uh, isn't good.

5 of 84 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Poor Safety and Dismal Crash Test Results by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    iPhones prove that cutting corners might not help with the cost anyway.

  2. Easy to scoff, harder to respect by rh2600 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    It's easy to scoff at a cheap car that cut obvious corners and was far behind what we expect for first-world motor vehicle transport that costs an order of magnitude above what millions of people in developing nations can affort...

    It takes some mental effort to respect that fact that Tata brought car-based mobility to a new generation of people that otherwise couldn't afford the level of vehicles we enjoy in more developed nations today... it wasn't too long ago (~50 years) that we were driving cars worse in quality and safety than the Nano... and they cost a pretty penny even for first world nations at the time...so why begrudge and scoff at another developing nation's progress on the same path we also walked (albeit earlier)?

    1. Re:Easy to scoff, harder to respect by dryriver · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Nano was created to cut down on the huge number of motorcycle deaths in India. It was supposed to be a motorcycle priced car that gives you SOME chance of survival (whereas a motorbike in India gives you pretty much none). Which is precisely why Tata was eventually pressured into shutting down the Nano before it evolves into a cheap AND safe ride a few years down the road. That would have cost dozens of other bigger car makers hundreds of thousands or eventually millions of car sales every year. The fact of the matter is that in the world we live in, trying to create something that is cheap AND usable will often get you into trouble.

      --
      Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
  3. 2 of Them by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I got two Tata Nanos so I could have my own pair of tatas.

  4. Nano was the car which brought down Tata Motors by Frankie70 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Tata Motor was the #2 car company in India after Maruti Suzuki before they introduced the Nano. Nano was their CEO Ratan Tata's pet project. Ratan Tata assumed the car would sell on it's own without much marketing & advertising expenditure. But the car didn't. People preferred to buy a 2nd hand car which cost the same as a new Nano but was a much better car. Ergo, the Nano was a flop. But because it was the CEO's pet project, the company wouldn't let it go, they spent a lot of money & effort over years to make sure the car doesn't die. Tata Motors went to losses because of the time, effort & money they spent on the car. They lost their position in the market. It was only after Ratan Tata resigned & a new CEO took over that the company was turned around again. And now they have at last stopped production of the car - something which should have been done 5-6 years back.