tata nano

Interesting Facts about the Tata Nano

At a time when the demand for fuel efficient and low-cost cars is high, the entry of Tata's much publicized proposed small car Nano into the Indian car market is being widely seen as a ray of hope. Unveiled on January 10, 2008 at the 9th annual Auto Expo at Pragati Maidan in New Delhi, the Tata Nano is a small, affordable city car primarily aimed at Indian car market.

Widely perceived as the "People's Car" and touted as the “Cheapest car in the world” available for Rs 1 lakh, the Tata Nano is a dream come true for Ratan Tata, the chairman of the Tata Motors. Though it has received an overwhelming response as soon as it was unveiled, the road for Tata Nano was not smooth. Yet to be commercial launched in India and elsewhere, the car has faced may hurdles in its path. Here is an interesting peep into the journey of the Nano from a mere concept to reality:

Nano's mission began way back in 2003 when Ratan Tata first thought of gifting the India’s middle class society a car that will carry a price tag of a two wheeler and features of a four wheeler. The Nano concept popped up into his mind when he saw a family traveling somehow scrambled in a two wheeler in rain. The very site of this urged him to build a car that will suit the need of middle class family.

Earlier, Nano was speculated to be a simple four-wheel auto rickshaw. But this was then clarified by Ratan Tata that it’s "a real car" and not any vehicle with plastic curtains or roof. The Nana rather has a roomy passenger compartment with generous leg space and head room.

According to the Tata Motors, the conceptualization of the Nano was a highly refined idea. With an emphasis on innovation and new design approaches, the Nano was designed at the Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering, Italy.

The Nano would be available in Standard, Deluxe, and Luxury variants. The Deluxe and the Luxury variants are air-conditioned and have body coloured bumpers. Alloy wheels, fog lamps, and ICE are the other features of the Luxury variant. Most notably, the Nano has 21% space in the interior and 8% smaller exterior compared to its closest competitor Maruti 800.

Carrying a length of 3.1m, width of 1.5 m, and height of 1.6 m and adequate ground clearance, the little Nano can easily manoeuvre on busy roads in cities as well as in rural areas.

Tata Motors is also working on an environment-friendly electric version of the Nano called the E-Nano. It would be the world's cheapest electric car if it gets launched in the market. It is also said that E-Nano would have attached or side solar panels. Further, a hybrid Nano is also speculated to make its entry.

Tata Nano has already generated competition even before its entry into the market. Bajaj Auto is said to be working on a small car project pitted against the Nano carrying same price delivering 30km/litre. Fiat, General Motors, Ford, Hyundai, and Toyota are also interested in producing small and highly affordable cars aimed largely at middle-class consumers. Players like the proposed inexpensive and eco-friendly electric cars like the Tara Tiny, the Oreva Super are expected to take on the Nano.

Tata's ambitious small car was named Nano because it connotes high technology and small size. The Nano made its European debut at the Geneva Auto Show 2008 and successfully gathered huge crowd. The onlookers marveled at its small wheels, straw-sized exhaust pipe, and single windshield wiper.

The Nano will be offered in a wide range of body colours, and other accessories so that the car can be customized to individual preferences. It can comfortably seat four persons. Four doors with high seating position make ingress and egress easy.

The Nano comes with a rear-wheel drive. The lean design has helped to minimize weight, which further maximize performance per unit of energy consumed and delivers high fuel efficiency.

Tata Motors claims that the Nano is completely safe. It features crumple zones, intrusion-resistant doors, seat belts, strong seats and anchorages, and the rear tailgate glass bonded to the body. Also, the Nano's emission performance exceeds regulatory requirements with low carbon dioxide emissions thereby providing the twin benefits of an affordable transportation solution with a low carbon footprint. Its pollution levels are lesser than the two-wheelers being manufactured in India today.

Tata Motors is likely to start Nano bookings from March or April 2009. The Nano was originally planned to be launched commercially in October 2008 but the land issues at Singur in West Bengal delayed the launch of the car. Ratan Tata then moved the Nano plant to Sanand, near Ahmedabad, Gujarat. In addition to the Uttarakhand facility, the Tata Motors also plans to manufacture the Nano from various facilities including the Pune and Pantnagar plant.

Since the day it was announced, masses across the world were keen to know how the ‘People's Car’ looks. The Tata Motors' website received nearly 7.9 million hits on January 10, 2008 (the day the Nano was unveiled), while the Tata Nano website registered 4 million hits in 30 hours.

It is interesting to know that Tata Motors has already won the Wall Street Journal Technology Innovation Award in the 'Transportation' category for 'very impressive design accomplishment' for the Nano. The contest had received over 700 entries, which were later brought down to 162 for the final selection.

Nano Disadvantages - Nano Drawback

Nano is made of light weighing steel and as the front side of the car is not too long there may maximum damage and its top speed is 90km/hr and there is no power steering . But such a small car will not require power steering. There is no AC , cassette player and power windows in the basic model .It has only 4 gears whThe only drawback is of saftey measure, and at most of frontal crash.

Who the hell is looking for a music player,power-windows, auto-transmission in just Rs. 1.5 lac. or lesser for a base model.ich are manual and the fuel tank capacity is 30lts

Though the Nano can be a poor mans car, its lack of all safety features. Its having no disc brakes, engine is on the rare side so head on collision will have a greater impact on the passengers of the car, body is made of superlight material almost resembling fibre material. Overall not at all safe and waste of money. Instead of it we can go for M800 or Suzuki Alto

Technical experts blame the position of the battery for such incidents. "It's quite a serious issue as the fuse and the main circuit breaker should have had gone off before the fire. There could be over-rated electrical parts in the car, which led to the fire," said a former official with the Automotive Research Association of India.

Tata Motors said it may undertake a pre-emptive check on the 7,500-odd Nanos that have been delivered till date, after a faulty combination switch in the world's cheapest car resulted in fires in at least three cases across the country

Three cases of fire in the car had been reported in the past few days in Delhi, Lucknow and Ahmedabad. There were no reports of injury or loss of life in any of the incidents.

. The country's largest manufacturer of cars and trucks by sales, however, said it was not considering a recall of the car for the time being. It said its experts will check all the cars with customers, purely as a precautionary measure. Unlike in the US and European car markets, recall of cars is not mandatory in India, even in cases of technical faults.

"There seems to be some minor problem in the combination switch area. Of the two cars that we have had access to, this caused smoke and localised melting of plastic parts," said Tata Motors spokesman Debashish Ray, who chose to play down the incidents

Following are Drawbacks of Tata Nano:

•No Hand Brake.

•Engine at the rear. So no protection at the front in case of accident.

•Top speed - 90 Kmph (Kilometer per hour). Thats why it would be just a city car more or less, no long drives! Pity!!. So, it would not be popular among youth who need speed which they get in Bikes.

•Made up of low grade metal - Aluminium

•Mileage: 20 Kmpl in spite of being light weight

•Low Quality interiors - Seat cover are made up of leather.

•No spare Tire.

•Small sized Dashboard which can't safeguard against collision from front.

•Low Priced gearbox from Kinetic Scooter Company.

•Very ugly interiors.

•Seats uncomfortable much like a Three-Wheeler.

•Emission norms not followed properly.

•Not powerful, Slow Pickup (0-20 Kmph)

•Little Advantage in Hot Places: It has an AC (Air Conditioner) I guess!!

believe there are advantages and disadvantages to the introduction of the nano

so i will speak for both....

first of all the nano is a city car it will not be used much to travel between cities like the other cars....

so there will be an increased level of traffic during the peak hours of travel....

but the number of fatal accidents caused by bikes will be reduced because of the nano

talking abt accidents fatal ones caused by cars itself ...the number of accidents will be great...

because the nano is made out of light weight aluminium..

it will fold up like a matchbox in an accident

but enough abt the death part...

Nano is a 33 PS (33 hp/24 kW) car with a 623 cc rear engine .

the maruti 800 another small car has great problem going ip a slope loaded up with 4 full grown passengers..

so there are doubts abt the capabality of the nano...