Jan 29, 2008 05:53 PM
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Building a “People’s car” was the commitment that Ratan Tata made to himself and to the country. As we all know, seeing a family of 4 huddled up and clinging to a motorcycle/scooter, he thought there must be an alternate way to travel. And the thought of building a car to cater to the alternate needs. Goal set. Price: Rs. 1 Lakh. Globally:$2500. Period.
As and when executives from Tata were asked about their ambitious project they always came up with the answer-we are looking at all aspects of the car, safety, mileage, emissions, price, seating capacity, etc.
In return, of those answers, skeptics and analysts around the world thought of hundred ways why it was not possible to build a car at such a low price. Even if it were built, it would be a lot of compromise on safety, fuel efficiency, comfort, and emissions.
But the engineers, designer team at Tata did it! And in time! In the process they and the Nano drew attention from skeptics, technical and auto analysts, emission experts, and top of all of them their target consumer-the common man.
It will be redundant to Redefine the Nano(most of it is available in the media)-however, for the purpose of avoiding navigation to other webpages, here we go—
It is a 2cylinder 623 cc, 33 bhpengine, rear mounted multi-point fuel injection(MPFi) petrol engine. Top speed(claimed): 105 kmph. Fuel Efficiency: 20 kmpl(claimed). Pollution: Surpasses Indian regulatory requirements and Euro IV emission norms. Less polluting than most of the bikes on Indian roads. Safety: Exceeds current regulatory requirements.
Price: 1 Lakh INR. [I understand with Taxes, the price is about Rs. 1.75 lakh]
The launch marked a proud moment for India. The launch of this car symbolizes the world class OWN engineering capabilities-not borrowed, not shared-. And it isn’t only in the field of IT low-cost engineering!
It made car makers in the world think that something of this kind “can be done”. The question was and is whether or not they can do it.
Mission accomplished!
Is it, yet?
A colleague of mine asked, “Is Indian transportation infrastructure good enough to manage the traffic jams, which the Nano is likely to cause, provided it become a hit?” My answer to him was- It is a Catch 22 situation. You don’ have good roads, let us not build good cars. Alternatively, we do not have good cars, let’s not build good roads. My friend, things have to start somewhere, right? Give it a go and I promise, Indians will find a way to adapt, while those global Indian infrastructure projects are underway. Indians did adapt to the Pepsi and Cokes, adapted to the sachets of shampoos, adapted to packaged food. They will adapt to the Nano.
I read an article and in it there was a suggestion that Mr. Ratan Tata also take up the task of building infrastructure and an efficient traffic system for the success of his innovation. May be the author is right in having high expectations from Mr. Ratan Tata. However, my immediate response is- people who make computers do not necessarily make chips, someone else does that, some one else makes the antivirus software, and some one else does the real player. It needs to be a collective effort from different factions for an innovation to succeed.
As far as who will buy is concerned, we continue to have heated debates and arguments as to who will buy this, who will not, why will they buy, why will they not buy, etc. etc. All our discussions end up in thin air. Some say that since in India, a car is still a status symbol and not a necessity, people will not buy this, they will go in for a higher version to portray their image that they aren’t the lowest in the pyramid, they a class above. Let’s apply the same logic to Maruti 800, two decades ago, it was the same. Even then, it sold, people bought, and was a run away success. Until the launch of Alto, it was still the breadwinner of the family for Maruti.
Some say, people will buy who have a rational approach to their buying decision-“We Need a vehicle to carry our family of 3-4, without siphoning out too much from our purse.” Never mind the high price car of the neighbour, never mind the little races we have on Indian roads, never mind the ego satisfaction that we have on seeing a lower priced/lower powered car beside us in traffic, and never mind the sulken feeling we get when the other car is a higher version than ours.
Some will buy coz they NEED this car, some will buy coz their family needs to be physically mobile, some will buy this as a second car, some will buy it as a gift for their loved ones, some will buy coz they want to own every new, appealing innovations. My guess is, people will buy.
Also, some may postpone their small-car purchase to wait for the what the GMs, the Fords, the Volvos, the Bajajs of the world have offer. There is the catch! Nano is the leader and the other are/ will be followers.
However, I do not mean to say that the followers’ cars will be anything less than the Nano, they may be much better version of small affordable cars. But, the thing will remain that Nano taught them how to think about making a small car, think about people, and make a “people’s car.” By the way, Hyundai is already on its way to manufacture the “public car”. Best wishes and blessings to all those manufacturers who have at least started to thing on the line of the common man.
