World’s cheapest car is revealed

March 26th, 2009

This week saw the launch of the World’s Cheapest car. The Tato Nano, costing just £1,366 (100,000 rupees) will go on sale in India in April.

Ruta Tata, the chairman of the Indian Conglomerate Tata Motors, conceived the idea with the aim of getting poorer Indian families off of unsafe motorcycles and into safer cars.

The car itself is just three metres long and has a top speed of 65 miles per hour. The basic model is exactly that. It has no airbags, no air conditioning, no radio and no power steering. It sounds like the sale of these cars is going to be done through a ballot where people have a set timeframe to apply to buy a car and then 100,000 people selected from all applicants with deliveries starting in July.

After the launch in India, Tata plans to roll the model out into other markets elsewhere in the world, starting with the US and then moving into Europe.

Tata has high hopes for The Tato Nano predicting that sales could hit one million units a year, however due to a dispute a new factory capable of producing 250,000 Nanos has been delayed until next spring. The Times are reporting that waiting times could stretch to 2012 and by that time other projects would have launched, for example a joint venture between Renault-Nissan and Bajaj, the two-wheeler manufacturer which is planning a Non-type super-compact car by 2011.

A lot of families in India also have high hopes. For some the thought of being able to afford their own car was a distant dream, now it is within touching point for many.

Entry Filed under: cars