Practice Management

Are You Ready for a $2,500 Car?

Tata Motors, based in Mumbai, makes cars, trucks, and buses for both the domestic market and for export, and has relationships with Italy’s Fiat and Korea’s Daewoo. They have just revealed their $2,500 Nano, which they have labeled The People’s Car. Tata’s goal is to get the Nano in the driveways of Indian citizens who otherwise couldn’t afford four-wheeled transportation.

But while the lights of the New Delhi Auto Expo were trained on Tata’s minicar, activists near Kolkata were burning the car in effigy. The Trinamool Congress, a West Bengal opposition group, torched a mockup of the Nano in protest over land rights at the factory location. They claim that farmers were ousted in order to acquire the land needed for the Tata production factory. Their leader vows that no cars will come off the assembly line until the wrong has been righted.

Let’s assume the political heat cools down and the Nano does indeed hit the market. If the Nano runs and is reliable, it probably will not be long before this auto reaches American shores. It could revolutionize driving for youth like the original Volkswagen Beetle did when I started driving. (Ok, I may have just aged myself )

Stay tuned, and start saving your pennies.

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Full post as published by Law Practice Management on January 13, 2008 (boomark / email).