The Nano is a four-seater car built by the Indian Tata Motors Ltd it is expected to hit the roads by November 2008. It has a tiny 630 cc engine and enough room to sit four adults.
What makes this car noteworthy is that it is being launched in a country of a billion plus people, with more than 60% of the population under the age of 35. A growing middle class numbering approximately 250 million. The burgeoning middle class aspires to be upwardly mobile. The people can upgrade from their two wheelers. They can leave the crowded trains and unsafe rickshaws behind.
What makes this car revolutionary is its cost. It is projected to cost a mere INR 100,000 (around USD 2500). This makes it the cheapest car in the world. In real terms this is by far the cheapest car ever made. Because of its price, it puts private transport within the common man’s reach. It provides urban and rural consumers a way to fulfill their dream of owning a car. Tata estimates that it can sell over a million Nanos every year. This one car alone is estimated to increase the size of the Indian auto market by 65%. Furthermore, Tata Motors can exploit huge export markets in South East Asia, Africa and Latin America.
This will thus be a true people’s car, in the mold of the Ford Model T and the Volkswagen Beetle. This is also a very smart product strategy. Now Tata Motor has Jaguar/Land Rover at the higher end of the market and the Nano at the low end of the market. It is trying to bolster the product line in the midsize segment with the Indica and the Indigo. With a product line that stretches to both extremes of the market, the company, clearly, is on route to become a major worldwide auto manufacturer...