Indian, Nano coming soon..

i think the replies here and on other forums lack relativity (cultural relativity?)

in many countries the small car that a company sells if often the side of a Hyundai i30

now this car is already what the English call a small/medium hatch which weighs 1.3 tons and is a good US$15,000 on most markets

it has ABS, traction and 6 airbags and already out of reach for many families in the western world

hyundai and many manufacturers already have cars two sizes under this (city car and 'superminis')

clearly then for people in the third world who have some income, even these city cars are out of reach

so a clever design like the Nano is right for their market

not long ago the Germans coming out of WW2 had to also explore such 'bubble cars' which is a similar concept

i think the Nano is a good thing - if it provides some learning for the Chinese to make their own car perhaps a size bigger than the Nano it would be great

perhaps the western would can do with a car as small as a Toyota iQ or a Smart car that is also cheap, safe and useful

ash said:

i foresee a lot of problems with the NANO....lets see

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Actually you would be surprised. When the car was intially launched I followed very closey. The problems I saw with this car was nothing to do with safety but to do with the flooding of affordable cars on India's already congested road. However at that time though my mindset was that Indian cars were not safe but thats all changed now.

Other than that the Tata Nano scored a four star rating in the European test facility Mira. For a car priced so cheaply it is much more than a miracle to me it seems this years of hard work by Tata designers to come up with a safe and reliable vehicle. It also shows the Tata engineering firms strength and capabilities. Its a little wonder that Jaguar and Land Rover were sold over to Tata. What we wont see will be Tata badges slapped on the Jag or Land Rover

I cannot post URL's to other links after 10 posts which is quite sad just some of you may think I'm lying but I guess type it for yourself (Tata Nano Crash test) in either youtube or google.

Oooh are they available already in America?

I think the Nanos maybe out in Europe this year or next. I would like to know the consistency on quality. Considering the Tata's have been making trucks and medium trucks since India's independence this may not be such a problem.

However if you currently own a motorbike and wish to step into something much safer Nano is the way to go. But if safety is your main concern by a bigger bodied car. The Tata Nano like the Smart car has smaller crumple zones compared to larger bodied vehicles consequenty you can see that they get thrown around in tests (increase in whip lash). This is offcouse much better than vaporising altogether when tested against a wall unlike some Chinese tests like the Landwind lol. Bigger cars instead deform a fair bit especially where the engine bay is. This results in a gradual stop rather than suddenly in smaller cars like the Nano and Smart car.

I just thought to point it out mate incase a false sense of security is conjured with my last post. I have studied engineering particularly Modern Manufacturing. Quite interesting knowledge and facts are learnt. We also looked at crash test videos and how to look for early manufacturing defects it was a fun side to my engineering experience.