Tata Nano, a car for the price of a high end laptop, the People’s Car. Now that’s making the impossible possible. Yesterday, Tata unveiled the world’s cheapest car, The Tata Nano, which will begin selling at 100,000 Rupees ($2,500). This is a car that has all the potential to change the lives of the common Indian. This is revolutionary kind of thinking and will definitely produce some interesting cars from competitors in the near future. There are plenty of reviews out there already, and all kinds of opinions about the Nano, and the news has been creating quiet a buzz everywhere.
What really caught my attention was the concern of environmentalists, and their concern that a car this cheap will eventually result in more cars on the road, and hence add more pollution to India’s already polluted cities, plus more clogged up roads. Now, if cars were to sell like cell phones in India, then they are probably right, the future for India might be, worst case, a country of billion cars, and Indian roads may never be the same again.
But, in reality things might not be as bad as the pundits and environmentalists like to predict. For one, we are talking about a country which is already full of highly polluting and less efficient vehicles. If anything, a car this cheap, less polluting, and more efficient, would replace some of the older vehicles, and get them off the streets. The net surge in number of vehicles might not be as bad as people like to think, plus by replacing more polluting vehicles, there could be reduction in pollution. Tata has set the standard with the nano, and the competition will try to out do and better that mark. Which means, look forward to more efficient, and less polluting smaller vehicles for the Indian market.
On the other hand, there are only so many cars Tata can produce, with 250,000 to start with, and then upto one million a year. So, you are not going to see a billion cars on the streets overnight. And if it does get to those number, then the road systems in Indian cities, cannot support that many cars, and so no one will be driving them anyway. Either way environmentalists have nothing to worry about. They should probably spend their time more efficiently getting those big SUV’s off the streets.
The bigger concern is when ox carts get replaced with Tata Nanos. The potential for non polluting and less polluting vehicles being replaced by the Nano, can be considered a bigger concern, and can definitely put more cars on the streets. But, I wouldn’t worry too much, when companies like Tata start thinking of better solutions for the Indian Market, that’s a good sign. Instead of thinking of building a SUV for India, they thought of building the right car for India. That tells me that, the future is sound. When we face higher traffic and polluting problems in the future, we will not only think different to solve those issues, but also find solutions that will work well in India.
Yes, Jan 14, 2008 has been 
