$2500 Tata Nano Car Unveiled in India

theodp writes "After months of rumors and tantalizing leaks, Tata Motors has finally unveiled the Tata Nano, its already legendary $2,500 car that promises to change the face of not only the Indian car market, but the global auto industry. The tiny car is a four-door, five-seat hatch, powered by a 30 hp engine that gets 54 miles per gallon."

Somewhere

[elrous0 (869638)]

Ralph Nader just fell out of his chair.

Re:

[ArcherB (796902)]

Would any one in the western world even think of buying this car? Even for driving in the cities/small towns?

I would if I never had to enter a freeway.

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

Re:Somewhere

[smilindog2000 (907665)]

This car isn't designed for US roads, where it would be a menace. It's designed for Indian roads, which I've never seen, but which I suspect are similar to roads in Italy. Imagine a country where the roads are exactly like a huge Target parking lot. This is Italy. The Tata Nano would be perfect.

Re:Somewhere

[johnlcallaway (165670)]

I have seen the roads in India, specifically Chennai and Mumbai, and cars like this can improve safety. I saw many little 150cc motorcycles with 3, 4, even 5 people on them tooling around. Many of the bikes with only two people had a woman on the back with a sari, just waiting to get caught in the rear wheel. In fact, one of the accessories for Indian motorcycles is a sari guard, designed just for this purpose.

These new cars are probably a lot safe than the auto-rickshaws running everywhere also.

$2,500 may not seem much to a USA citizen, but it is a huge mount to many Indians. Motorycles are in the $700 range, so this is a 400-500 percent increase when factoring in taxes, etc. New USA motorcycles above 650cc are in the $5,000 and up range, new cars are only about 2.5 to 3 times more expensive.

I applaud Tata motors for bringing to India an automobile that addresses safety and pollution concerns. Would I buy one?? If I could commute completely on city streets, which I can, then yes. You can't buy a used motorcycle of any size in the US for $2,500. Right now, I ride my motorcycle to work as often as I can (probably at least 4 out of 5 days), but even in Phoenix it rains sometimes. For those days, I have to depend on a truck that gets 20 mpg. What a waste for one person, I would rather look into one of these.

And don't tell me about SmartCars. They cost over $20K. I'm not spending that for a car I would use 10 or 15 times a year.

Re:Somewhere

[argiedot (1035754)]

Agreed! I live here in Chennai, and though I hate the fact that this car just means that there'll be much more traffic, this will be much safer than those two wheelers for those people and it'll be nice for all those people who crowd four people onto a motorbike (it's only twice the cost of a reasonably powerful bike). In that way it's nice. I wonder if there'll be an LPG version, I'm sure that'll be hugely popular if it does come because LPG is about twice the mileage per rupee.

Motorcycles easily under $2500

[mechsoph (716782)]

You can't buy a used motorcycle of any size in the US for $2,500.

If you don't want "butt jewelry" as they call it, finding something under $2500 should be easy. Of course if you can only ride it half the year, it's probably not worth the extra cost of insurance, titling, and capital other than for sake of entertainment.

• $995 CB 250 [craigslist.org]
• $2000 CB 750 [craigslist.org]
• $2500 CB 750 [craigslist.org]
• $2195 CB 750 [craigslist.org]

Re:

[bytesex (112972)]

Depends on your version of Italy, I suppose. I've done 200 kph on the road from Firenze to Milano multiple times.

Re:Somewhere

[plague3106 (71849)]

No. I doubt that the 30 HP engine could climb some of the hills and mountains we have here in Vermont.

Also, lets be real. How effective is a 30HP car going to be moving a family of fatass American families weighing in at ~1000lbs total.

Re:Somewhere

[TW Atwater (1145245)]

The original VW Beetle, which managed to go all over Germany with 4 lard-ass Germans had a 25 hp engine.

Re:Somewhere

[savuporo (658486)]

Ah, but you dont take the inflation and exchange rates into account ! A modern american lard-ass works out to be roughly 4.67 units of the original VW Beetle era german lard-asses.

Re:

[1u3hr (530656)]

Also, lets be real. How effective is a 30HP car going to be moving a family of fatass American families weighing in at ~1000lbs total.

Could 30 horses not pull a wagon with 4 fat Americans in it? Perhaps not at Ben Hur speed, but they'd get there.

Re:Somewhere

[hey! (33014)]

Well, since 1 HP is the power to lift 33,000 lbs one foot in one minute, 30 hp should be able to lift 990,000 pounds one foot in one minute. Assuming that the car weighs in at roughly 2500 pounds, and four jumbo sized American occupants of 300 pounds each, we have a total weight of 3700 pounds, which a 30 HP engine should be able to raise 267 feet/minute, exclusive of frictional losses, especially air turbulence over relatively flat terrain.

An extremely steep public road might have a grade of 15% (rise over horizontal distance, or roughly 8.5 degrees slope. Traveling a measured mile along such a road yields an elevation gain of 780 feet, which might indeed prove a challenge for our 30 hp engine with our four sumo sized occupants, which exclusive of losses is capable of gaining that altitude in a bit under three minutes. However, there are very few straight roads this steep; if we assume lots of switchbacks and hairpin turns, an average speed of fifteen mph or so is not utterly unreasonable, although people who live at the top of such a hill might opt for a more powerful car.

A very steep section of highway might have a grade of 5% or maybe 7%. A measured mile at 7% is a gain of 370 feet and our engine could lift our sumo crew that height in one minute, twenty three seconds, limiting our speed to around 44mph on this stretch theoretically. Let's say we have a continuously variable transmission, or at least one that is appropriate to this car, we might end up limited to 30 mph on this stretch.

Of course, with a single, 250 pound occupant, our engine could raise the car and occupant 370 feet in 62 seconds. Since that would be almost 60mph over our measured mile, our actual speed would be limited by aerodynamic, frictional losses, and the ability of a rudimentary transmission to keep the engine in its power band, but assuming that the transmission is designed for efficient operation in the 30-40 mph speed range, it shouldn't be impossible for a single commuter to achieve speeds of 45mph over such a stretch of highway. Given that this piece of highway probably has a climbing lane, this vehicle would not be impractical for a single occupant, provided he'd rather have fifteen grand in his pocket from the purchase of the car than fifteen mph on that stretch of road. Not to mention the cost of gas.

Re:

[cayenne8 (626475)]

"How about as a second (work) car if you live sufficiently close to were you live (so you don't take a freeway)?"

Good Lord no...I dunno where you live, but, a 30HP engine in the CITY on regular streets would get you killed around here. I know the 'posted' limits are like 30-45mph, but, no one ever really follows those. 50-60mph in certain areas is more the norm, if you go slower than that....you'll get run over.

The only time people go the limits...is when the cops are out on one of their revenue generati

Re:Somewhere

[AeroIllini (726211)]

Talk about your double standards. Everyone in your city is going from 50% to 100% in excess of the speed limit but if the cops give any of them a ticket it's a 'revenue generation stakeout'?

It's only a double standard if you assume the speed limits are correctly set, and that people are driving unsafely. Many times this is not the case, and the speed limits are set arbitrarily low, sometimes as revenue generation mechanisms, sometimes as misguided attempts to save lives. I've found that aside from the occasional nut [wired.com], the majority of people do not drive any faster than they are comfortable with (hazardous conditions aside), and if traffic is consistently faster than the posted limits then the limits are too low.

In either case, making certain sections of roadway significantly slower than other sections will often cause more accidents as people slam on their brakes to avoid a ticket. Setting large areas of a roadway to a too-slow limit will cause larger numbers of traffic jams as the "good citizens" who insist on driving what it says on the sign slow down everyone else who is driving what the road can safely handle (this happens a lot here in Seattle, where the freeways have a 60 mph limit but free-flow traffic routinely does 65 or 70).

Re:Somewhere

[SQLGuru (980662)]

I'd buy one for my commute. I have a Nissan Armada that I bought before gas prices went skyrocketing. I needed something with lots of space because of what I was carrying around and it was the roomiest. My needs have changed and I can't get out of it what I owe (who wants a gas hog these days). This car would be perfect for my commute (against traffic, 10 miles - takes less than 15 minutes each way even if I hit all of the lights) and would fit within my budget.

I wouldn't even need any extra garage space.....I could just build a ramp up into my Armada and park it there.....three cars in a two car garage.

Layne

Re:Somewhere

[bleh-of-the-huns (17740)]

And when you go on holiday to another big city, you just pack the Tata into the back of your Armada and drive off :)

I'd buy one, too.

[maillemaker (924053)]

I've been waiting for these little micro-cars to come out on the market. I had high hopes for the "Smart Car", but it's price is up around $12,000, and now they are down to 40MPG or so.

I think we are entering a phase of American driving where people will have a tiny, one-person, gas-sipping commuter car to go to work every day, and a "family car" for long-distance travels on the weekends.

And before everyone freaks out about the safety, I figure it's safer than a motorcycle.

Re:I'd buy one, too.

[moosesocks (264553)]

Yes, but the mentality of a motorcycle driver is somewhat different from the the mentality of a car driver.

A motorcycle driver *knows* that he will very likely die if he crashes at high speed. Car drivers typically don't tend to exercise the same amount of caution.

Likewise, the handling and braking on a $2500 car can't be all that good. Pedestrian injuries seem extremely likely.

Re:I'd buy one, too.

[MSG (12810)]

That link isn't a scientific study, and should not be used as the foundation for broad generalizations. Furthermore, it doesn't even support your assertion. It does say that the median age of riders has risen significantly, but does not discuss the relative rates of accidents among younger and older groups.

The fact is that the best data available today still comes from the Hurt Report (rimary author, Dr. Harry Hurt), even though the study was written in 1981. Just in the last couple of months, the federal government and the AMA have jointly funded a new study intended to update those conclusions.

The summary of the Hurt Report can be found online, but I think that a couple of these conclusions are relevant here:

22. The motorcycle riders involved in accidents are essentially without training; 92% were self-taught or learned from family or friends. Motorcycle rider training experience reduces accident involvement and is related to reduced injuries in the event of accidents.

19. Motorcycle riders between the ages of 16 and 24 are significantly overrepresented in accidents; motorcycle riders between the ages of 30 and 50 are significantly underrepresented. Although the majority of the accident-involved motorcycle riders are male (96%), the female motorcycles riders are significantly overrepresented in the accident data.

23. More than half of the accident-involved motorcycle riders had less than 5 months experience on the accident motorcycle, although the total street riding experience was almost 3 years. Motorcycle riders with dirt bike experience are significantly underrepresented in the accident data.

32. Motorcycles equipped with fairings and windshields are underrepresented in accidents, most likely because of the contribution to conspicuity and the association with more experienced and trained riders.

19 and 32, especially, point to the conclusion that the "older guy on a Harley" is most definitely not more likely to suffer an accident. Younger riders are much more likely to be involved in accidents, as are less experienced riders of any age.

With that said, the thing that I think is most important is founded on these two conclusions:

1. Approximately three-fourths of these motorcycle accidents involved collision with another vehicle, which was most usually a passenger automobile.

6. In the multiple vehicle accidents, the driver of the other vehicle violated the motorcycle right-of-way and caused the accident in two-thirds of those accidents.

According to the Hurt Report, 50% of all motorcycle accidents are caused by another driver violating the motorcycle's right-of-way. More experienced and better educated riders know this. They know that their age and experience will not remove the threat that they face from other drivers on the road, which is the single biggest threat to their safety. They can only mitigate that threat by constant guard against those violations at the places that they are most likely, and development of countersteering, swerving, and braking skills.

I am a motorcyclist.

Probably a young one. ;)

Re:I'd buy one, too.

[tthomas48 (180798)]

On the upside small cars like the smart car(search youtube for the smart car road test hitting a brick wall at high speed with no cabin intrusion) are made to withstand accidents exceedingly well, while SUVs are not. Anyone who's seen an SUV/compact car accident can tell you that the compact car usually looks completely destroyed, but the cabin looks intact, while the SUV is upside down with its roof collapsed in a ditch.
The lack of maneuverability in SUVs and Trucks combined with their top heaviness, often makes what should have been a simple physics equation (heaviest guy wins) devolve into complete randomness. And unfortunately weight is not a predictor of safety once you're airborne.

Re:

[penguin_dance (536599)]

No the reason you won't see this model over here isn't because of the "auto lobby." It's because Americans aren't going to buy what is essentally a supercharged golf cart. It's has 2 cylinder, 30 HP --most US cars start at 240 HP, 4 cylinders and go up from there. This WOULD be a death trap on any road except maybe some Sunnydale retirement community where golf carts and electric wheel chairs are the only modes of transportion. This car will be fine for navigating narrow, crowded roads where you can't drive

Re:Somewhere

[Bearhouse (1034238)]

Having driven in India, I'm damned if I'd buy one there, either. I would not feel safe in anything less than a heavy tank.
Rover's 'CityRover', (a re-badged Tata), was a failure in the UK, being panned for virtually everything.

Still, some people in the West have bought the appalling 'Gee Whizz', which lets you have windscreen wipers, or lights, on a rainy night - but not both. It also virtually guarantees that you perish in the inevitable accident. If you want all-electric, get a Tesla, (rather pricy, though)

The Smart car is much safer, but a commercial failure.

BTW, the Beetle was not VW's idea - it was Hitler's. VW was created to produce the Beetle, which was designed by Dr. Porsche, (who also did other fun stuff like Panzers).

Safety is relative

[Chrisq (894406)]

I'd be the same, but for the families that drive with 4 people on a motor scooter in India this is a vast improvement in safety.

Re:Nope

[GORby_ (101822)]

Well, of course...

When a car with 30hp clashes with one with 150, who do you guess is gonna win?
I know hitpoints aren't everything, but I fear the nano hasn't got much of a chance there :-)
One critical hit would be enough to kill it.

Re:Somewhere

[jandrese (485)]

I think it's like the VW Microbus, the front crumple zone is actually the driver's legs.

Re:Somewhere

[operagost (62405)]

The femur's a really big bone! I bet if we divert the energy of the crash up that, we should be set! Drawback: it really hurts when you break your femur. Must look into that.

the VW idea lives on...

[i.r.id10t (595143)]

Nice to see the VW idea (small affordable car for The People) keeping on. Also nice to see that the low horsepower is there, after all, horsepower is for those who can't keep their speeds up in the corners.

Re:the VW idea lives on...

[Applekid (993327)]

Yes, we're keeping Hitler's idea alive and well these days

So, the idea of an affordable car for everyone is invalid because it was Hitler's, or do you have a real argument against it?

I heard Hitler liked breakfast, too.

Re:the VW idea lives on...

[Xzzy (111297)]

Hitler wasn't the only one with the idea anyways. Ferdinand Porsche had been working on the VW for years, it was just coincidence that the two wanted to build the same kind of car at around the same time.

Hitler was more of a bankroll for the project than inspiration.

Re:the VW idea lives on...

[Nimey (114278)]

The German word for "hello" is "Echsteinlefahrtengruber." The German translation for "Hey Hans, what say tomorrow morning we climb into our tanks and roll over Poland?" is "Hans, Poland, ja?"

What's in a name

[Ilan Volow (539597)]

When I hear the phrase "$2500 tatas", cars isn't the first thing that comes to mind.

Please import this to the States...

[ciaohound (118419)]

because the Nano's bra is the only one I have any chance of taking off. (No, I don't live in my parents' basement, I am married with young kids. The effect on one's sex life is the same.)

Some addtional facts.....

[8127972 (73495)]

... Besides being the largest car company in India according to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tata_Motors [wikipedia.org]

They are in the process of buying Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080103.wford0103/BNStory/Business [theglobeandmail.com]

It also owns pieces of Daewoo to boot. They're not a small player. The big three might want to take notice.

Good Business Oppurtunity

[madhatter256 (443326)]

I think this car would fare better in city markets. They can be used as taxis and replace the gas guzzling V8 Taxis that take up the road in NYC. With the size of the car being small, this can put more cars on the road.

Top speed

[LotsOfPhil (982823)]

Heard about this on NPR and they said the top speed is ~50 miles per hour.

The "Future" has been here for quite some time...

[stubear (130454)]

...and it's called diesel [treehugger.com]. However, we have politicians too stupid to see that diesel powered vehicles can get the gas mileage consumers demand while burning cleaner than gasoline combustion engines can like environmentalists want. Stupid states like California and Massachusetts outright ban these vehicles for new car sales. If diesel is so awful, I saw no evidence of that on a recent trip to Paris where diesel cars are everywhere. Diesel also offers a path to biodiesel through conversion kits which could ultimately smooth the transition to a renewable energy source that a)helps the U.S. economy and b)helps lower carbon emissions dramatically.

Diesel was truly awful in the US until recently.

[Shivetya (243324)]

Because one of the little dirty secrets of the Clean Air act was to exclude about everyone other than passenger cars from the rules. They specifically excluded diesel from the rules as the manufacturers were claiming small number of vehicles, poor farmers, and limited impact. Most likely a front for the oil industry.

Does Sweet Crude ring a bell? Specifically named for lack of sulfur which was the major contaminate in diesel.

The oil industry had the chance to make diesel the fuel of the future but their bean counters got in the way. They have known for ages (since McKinley's time) how to remove sulfur from the fuel BUT THEY DID NOT WANT TO. they did it for speciality uses (kerosene lamps so they would not catch fire or stink) but not vehicles. As such states like California went after them, specifically because nearly a dozen of the contaminents in heavy sulfur diesel fuel are carcinogens. Worse studies showed that air in diesel school buses was worse than the air around them!

Diesel had a futre but the industry got greedy and now will pay for it. Its not going to be until 2010 that we have mandatory clean diesels. Hell the current ones put out contaminents that hard catalytic converters.

Missing the point again

[Kupfernigk (1190345)]

I love it when so many people so comprehensively miss the point. Guys, first visit India, then understand the problems, then you are qualified to comment (and yes, I have worked in vehicle R&D and yes, I have spent time in India)

First, to all the Diesel supporters out there (I'm one too, currently driving my fifth one, and I keep them a long time.) The real reason that the US hardly sees European advanced Diesels, and that India can't use them, is that they don't have the refining and distribution capability to make the fuel needed by advanced car Diesels. There is a reason why my car has a 4-valve per cylinder DOHC with common rail and variable vane turbo, and my boat has the same engine with two valves per cylinder and produces one third of the horsepower. The boat will run on heating oil. The car needs low sulfur fuel with plenty of additives.

Second, to all the "this is underpowered, this is dangerous" mob out there. The alternative is either people hanging off a scooter, or a powered tricycle with no safety features whatsoever. This thing is a huge advance. Thirty HP is plenty for India, where acceleration has to take place in the middle of slow moving traffic, and where the motorway speed limit is 60.

Also, you may not have realised that the quoted fuel consumption of cars is on a special test cycle. American cars with their hugely over-horsepowered engines (often using a 2 litre plus engine where the Europeans would use 1300cc, and around 200HP where we would use 100) exceed the EPA consumption as soon as you put your foot down, yet most of the power can never be legally used for more than a few seconds. A limited capacity, limited power engine will in reality get better MPG simply because you cannot use it to waste fuel in rapid acceleration followed by heavy braking.

It seems to me that what this demonstrates is that Indians are capable of thinking about what works for their society, which is their huge advantage over most of the Third World.

Wish it were available here

[hey! (33014)]

At $2500, a vehicle like this would be worth buying just for hacking.

You could take the engine out without a block and tackle, carry it into your apartment, and mess with it on your kitchen table. You could play around with different engines about as easily as you swap a video card in your computer, playing around with Stirling engines or electrical motors or series hybrid configurations, with the the help of a local machine shop, or with after market kits.

When I was a kid, nearly everybody could do a little work on cars, and everybody at least knew somebody who did fairly major maintenance to their cars, and it was not at all uncommon for people to redesign various aspects of their cars, from boring out their carb jets to monkeying around with their suspension. Today cars are really, really good, and really really reliable. There just isn't much incentive to muck with a $30,000 machine that is pretty damned good already.

But at $2500, it'd be worth doing just for curiosity, not to mention much easier given the small size of the thing.

For those who want metric

[mrjb (547783)]

54 miles per gallon = 22.9577601 kilometers per liter

Re:For those who want metric

[ceoyoyo (59147)]

Actually usually you'd measure it as 4.4 L/100km.

Re:30BHP and only 54MPG?

[Da Fokka (94074)]

Unbelievable! Especially since the Punto is only 8 times as expensive [honestjohn.co.uk]. You are comparing apples and golden oranges.

Re:30BHP and only 54MPG?

[Albanach (527650)]

For example, the Fiat Punto 1.3 Multijet diesel gets a combined figure of 63 miles per (British) gallon.

But it's a diesel so you're comparing apples to oranges.

Normally you pay extra for a diesel engine, sometimes almost as much as the $2,500 that is the entire cost of this car.

Two Cylinder - Four Stroke

[sjbe (173966)]

well, it's a two-stroke, very simple, very cheap, very easy to service

It's a two cylinder, four stroke [wikipedia.org] engine. I misread that the first time too. From TFA:

powered by a 30 HP Bosch 624 cc four stroke engine mounted out back and mated to a CVT. That makes the Nano the first time a 2-cylinder gasoline engine will be used in a car with a single balancer shaft.

Re:

[Reality Master 101 (179095)]

I found the comments from the Greens very enlightening. Notice the lack of joy for the poor who will now be able to drive. Their comments fall in the "let them eat cake" category.

To be fair, the Greens would prefer that we *all* eat cake and live like the poorest indians (excepting other Green leaders and spokespeople, of course). :)

"More Cars" is not the answer.

[Anonymous Meoward (665631)]

I don't want more poor people driving. Or more rich people.

I would prefer it if MUCH fewer people needed to drive in the first place.

As I write this, I'm living in one American suburb, working in another, and am forced to burn fossil fuels just to buy a gallon of milk at the nearest store. I'm dependent on liquified dinosaurs. Walking to said shop from my house would probably only take 15 minutes tops, if a safe footpath existed. (I don't consider a freeway overpass without a pedestrain walkway to be adeq

Re:crumple...

[Malc (1751)]

And affordable is that to the people of India?

Re:crumple...

[Rogerborg (306625)]

If you do some background reading (on your iMac, doubtless) one of the goals of this car is to provide an affordable (economically and environmentally) way of getting Indians off of motorbikes and spit-and-construction paper trikes into something that does at least have a crumple zone. Wait - you do live in India, right?

SMART cars use other cars crumple zones...

[Shivetya (243324)]

hit an object that doesn't crumple in a SMART car and the results will not be pretty.

The key thing I remember from talking to a SMART distributor was how well it fared in accidents with OTHER cars. When some of us asked about fixed objects they kept going back to car versus car.

A car with such a limited crumple zone as the SMART is going to transmit more energy to the occupants upon impact, there simply isn't enough car there to do anything.

Besides the car was woefully underpowered requiring near lead foot

Re:Why such poor fuel consumption??

[mrchaotica (681592)]

Your BMW is a diesel, which is not comparable because it uses higher compression on a more energy-dense fuel, and is thus inherently more efficient. Instead, realize that everybody is comparing to a gasoline car, and thinks it's impressive because they're used to 30 mpg or less.

Of course, the real reason it's not impressive is that even non-hybrid gasoline cars, such as the Honda CRX HF and 3-cylinder Geo Metro, were capable of getting fuel economy in the 50 mpg range 15 years ago or so, and did it with more horsepower.