Tata Motors has begun taking orders for its Nano minicar.
The Indian automaker on Thursday opened up its booking system for the high-profile Nano, which it has pitched as the "people's car"--a first automobile for families that, until now, have had to crowd onto a scooter. There are only approximately nine vehicles per 1,000 people in India, according to the Reuters news agency.
The deluxe version of the Tata Nano (photo from January 2008).
(Credit: Tata Motors)Bookings will close in just more than two weeks, on April 25. The company had made application forms for bookings available at the beginning of the month and said the response has been "very encouraging."
Priced starting at about $2,000 for the standard version, the Tata Nano is a very modest machine. It's about 10 feet long, weighing in at about 1,300 pounds, and Tata says it can "comfortably" seat four adults. The top speed for the car, which has a two-cylinder, 624-cc, rear-mounted engine, is about 65 miles per hour. The gas mileage is said to be about 56 miles per gallon.
Prospective buyers seemed most attracted by the low price (only about three times that of a low-end scooter), according to a Reuters report.
"I have experienced other foreign small cars," Denis Quadros, 42, who owns a Maruti Wagon R, told Reuters. "They are expensive to maintain and consume a lot of fuel. But look at Nano's mileage, and we know Tata cars are cheaper on maintenance."
Tata plans to begin delivering the cars in July.
But even then, there could be a long wait for those who've booked a Nano order. At the end of June, Tata plans to announce the allotment of the first 100,000 cars, as determined by a computerized random selection. News agencies reported that it will likely take Tata more than a year to fill the 100,000 orders.
The deluxe version of the Tata Nano (photo from January 2008).
(Credit: Tata Motors)An update has been added to this story. See below for details.
The Tata Nano may be small in stature, but it could be a big deal for car buyers in India.
Mumbai-based automaker Tata Motors on Monday announced that the time has come for the commercial launch of the Nano, a diminutive design intended to put four-wheeled transportation in the driveways of ever more Indian families. Some analysts also say the Nano signals positive development in the Indian auto industry.
"Nano is good for India. It marks the country's coming of age," Abdul Majeed, auto analyst at PricewaterhouseCoopers, told ZDNet Asia in a phone interview.
When it unveiled the Nano in January 2008, Tata billed it as "the people's car," a step up from overcrowded, unsheltered scooters. (On Monday, for whatever reason, the "people's car" phrase was not to be found on the company's press material or the Tata Web site.)
That remains the driving notion behind the car. "It is to the credit of the team at Tata Motors that a car once thought impossible by the world is now a reality," Ratan Tata, the chairman of Tata Sons and Tata Motors, said in a statement Monday. "I hope it will provide safe, affordable, four-wheel transportation to families who till now have not been able to own a car."
Just 3 meters long by 1.5 meters wide by 1.6 meters high (about 10 feet long by 5 feet wide and tall), the Tata Nano provides what the company says is "an incredibly spacious passenger compartment which can comfortably seat four adults." The company goes on:
The Tata Nano has the smallest exterior footprint for a car in India but is 21 percent more spacious than the smallest car available today. A high seating position makes ingress and egress easy. Its small size coupled with a turning radius of just 4 meters makes it extremely maneuverable in the smallest of parking slots.... Read More
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