Great Nano from Tata Motors ready to roll out in India – March 23rd 2009

INDIA'S Tata Motors is ready to launch the world's cheapest car amid predictions
the vehicle could transform how millions travel and fears it would bring more traffic jams on Indian roads.

Tycoon Ratan Tata was due to unveil the four-door jellybean-shaped car with tear-drop lights at a "revolutionary high-tech'' audio-visual show in India's financial hub Mumbai.

The car is slated to cost just 100,000 rupees ($A2850) for the no-frills version that has a two-cylinder 623cc, rear-mounted engine with a top speed of 105kmh.
Ratan Tata, an architect by training and head of the sprawling tea-to-steel Tata Group, dreamed up the car to get poor Indians off unsafe motorcycles and into safer cars.

"There's no safety in two-wheelers especially with the whole family,'' said New Delhi resident Ganesh Khand, 38, who now has a motorbike but wants a Nano to be able to transport his wife and two daughters safely.

But the affluent are eyeing the car too.

"This is a value-for-money car,'' said Hasmukh Kakadia, 39, a Mumbai investment analyst.

The basic model has a four-speed manual transmission, no air-conditioning, electric windows or power steering, but deluxe versions will be available.

The launch comes at a tough time for India's top vehicle maker, hit by a slowing domestic economy, a credit crunch and a deepening world financial crisis that has hurt sales of British luxury marques Jaguar and Land Rover which it bought last year.

But demand is expected to be hot for the Nano with just 30,000 to 50,000 of cars likely to be sold in the first year because of limited production capacity - a fraction of the original target of 250,000, auto analysts said.

Dealers say they've been flooded with queries about the car whose debut was delayed by several months when violent protests over the acquisition of farmland for the project forced the Tatas to shift the Nano plant from West Bengal state to Gujarat, known as more business-friendly.

Tata has been likened by India's media to US automobile pioneer Henry Ford for conceiving the car.

But environmentalists fear the Nano will clog India's already crowded roads and add to choking pollution.

Tata Nano Interior Photo gallery




Src: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25227922-12335,00.html