Tata Motors Ltd, the automotive arm of $60 billion Tata Group, is all set to hand over the keys of its Nano, billed as the world’s cheapest car, to its first customer on Friday.
According to a Tata official, the first batch of the Nanos, 50 in all, has rolled out from its car plant in Pantnagar, though the majority of production would take place in Gujarat, where the construction of a new plant is scheduled for completion by December.
It has been learnt that at least 70 percent of the total booking (2,03,000 booking) have come from non-metro cities.
At the time of booking, Tata said that excluding the first lucky 100,000 customers who will chosen from a draw, everyone else will have the option to retain their booking even if they do not get an allotment in the first phase at the initial price. IBTimes India
From 2003, when Ratan Tata first spoke about the then unnamed car, to its launch in 2008 and finally its delivery in 2009, the Nano’s journey has been highly eventful.
The car was first showcased at the Delhi Auto Expo in 2008. At that time, the Tatas had announced that the car would be manufactured at a plant in Singur, West Bengal.
The plant ran into stiff opposition regarding land acquisition and compensation. This led to confrontations between Ratan Tata, Trinamool Congress leader Mamata Banerjee and the West Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacarya. The impasse continued for more than a year, and in late September 2008, Ratan Tata announced that he would be pulling the factory out of West Bengal. It was later relocated to Sanand, Gujarat. Hindustan Times
The head of Tata Motors, Ratan Tata, was to deliver the first car in person at a central Mumbai dealership, the company said. No details were immediately available about the recipient or the type of Nano being delivered.
But analysts said the delivery was a positive step, after a land dispute forced the firm off the site of a factory it was building to produce the cars in eastern India, fuelling concerns about its ability to meet demand on time.
“I think it’s very significant,” the associate editor of trade magazine Autocar Professional, Darius Lam.
“They have been talking about delivering this car since last year and subsequently due to the problems they have had with moving the factory they have had to delay it by at least one year.”
“It really shows that now they are getting their production in hand and are able to start delivering.”
Ratan Tata launched the Nano in March, predicting the no-frills vehicle would revolutionise travel for millions of Indians, getting the growing middle-class, urban population off motorcycles and into safer, affordable cars.
Three versions of the sporty, jellybean-shaped Nano went on sale in April: the basic model and more expensive CX and LX models, which have extra features like air-conditioning, automatic windows and central locking.
The standard model sells for 140,000 rupees in the showroom. The deluxe models cost up to 185,000 rupees. AFP
| 
|