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Tata's Nano: The World's Cheapest Car

What does $2,500 buy? A nice, wall-mounted television, or perhaps a lightweight

This small, monobox vehicle is India's Peoples' Car. (Photo: Tata)

laptop, but a brand new car? That's the goal of India's Tata corporation, whose chairman officially unveiled what is in effect the world's cheapest car, the Tata Nano. After seeing families of four or more traveling on motorcycles and even mopeds, a dangerous but unfortunately common reality in India, chairman Ratan N. Tata pledged to the masses that he would build a “one-lakh”(100,000 rupees) car, an extremely affordable vehicle to safely transport India's billions.

The Nano isn't a very big vehicle, but its monobox shape ensures that it can comfortably seat four six-foot tall adults without any difficulty, and has 20+ percent more interior volume than India's best selling car, the Maruti 800. In terms of its physical size, at 122.0 inches in length the Nano is bigger than the diminutive smart fortwo, but smaller than Mitsubishi's iCar. Put it this way – the entire Nano is just two inches longer than the wheelbase of a

The interior is very, very, very basic. (Photo: Tata)

Chrysler 300.

Like the former two vehicles, the Nano has its engine over the rear driving wheels, packaged with the transmission. In the case of the Nano, its motor is a 32-hp, 35 lb-ft of torque 38 cubic inch inline-two engine that is mated to a four-speed manual transmission. Performance (if you could call it that) is modest, taking about 14 seconds to hit 43 mph, and it runs out of steam at 68 mph. Considering that many urban Indian cities have giant congestion problems, this is unlikely to be an issue. Fuel economy is rated at 47 mpg. Tata will eventually produce a diesel version of the car, which will further help to improve its economy and carbon dioxide ratings.

For $2,500, the Nano is about as basic as a car can be. There are absolutely zero creature comforts; there is no air conditioning, are no electric windows, with even a radio deleted from the base model, while a more upscale Deluxe model offers alloy wheels and A/C. Somewhat worryingly, there is little by the way of safety features either, with braking conducted without power assistance and don't even think about airbags. That said, driving around a Nano with four or five people inside is invariably safer than doing the same task on a motorbike. The Nano rolls about on miniscule 12-inch wheels and has plenty of ground clearance to clear ruts on the many rural unpaved roads.

As of right now, Tata will only be selling the Nano in India, but it has high expectations as far as sales are concerned. Being as cheap as it is, Tata figures that they can easily built and sell 250,000 units in its first year, eventually scaling production up to a million units per annum. Eventually, once the Nano is established, and provided that it can meet safety and emissions standards, Tata will sell it in Europe.

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