GPWizard F1 Forum
Everything Else => General Automotive => Topic started by: Wizzo on August 26, 2007, 12:08:41 PM
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With only eight in 1,000 Indians owning a car, auto makers plan to make it cheaper for natives to get their hands on a model they can afford. In the USA, the figure is more like 750 per thousand people.
Car maker Tata Motors has announced that it plans to create a cheap vehicle to allow more of India's residents access to a car, whose sticker price would be about $2,500 (£1,246), making it the cheapest new car in the world.
UBS analyst Manishi Raychaudhuri said that there was great potential for the car to sell in vast numbers. But he added: "We still have a ways to go before we can call India the Detroit of the East."The car is expected to have four doors and be about the same size as a VW Rabbit but have only about a fifth of the horsepower.
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2,500 dollars,in the USA with dealers markup and shipping about 20,000 dollors
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No Dare ! The car is really going to be launched in that price range. Although its engine is not very refined, the market potential for something like this is staggering. Let me give you an example of pricing of cars in India.
Mercedes C Class - $ 67500 - Lowest Range
BMW - S Class - $ 75000 -
Toyota Camry - $42500.
Honda Accord - $ 41000
Toyota Corolla- $ 30000
As you can see cars in India are more costlier than the same cars in the U.S. Inspite of this India is one of the largest car markets in the World. Infrastructure is poor, driving laws archaic.
Whereas two wheelers like motor cycles and scooters are the preferred mode of transportation for a vast majority of white collar workers and these vehicles are typically around 100 to 150 CC engines and priced around $ 1000. They deliver close to 400 KMS per Gallon of petrol and are cheap to run and maintain.
The average whilte collar wage in India will be approximately around RS 2.4 Lakhs / year which is equivalent to $ 6000 / year whereas in the U.S the average annual wage is nearly $ 35000 which is 6 times more.
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I heard a brief story about this on the news over here. They said that it will be made mostly of plastic.
I wonder what emissions and safety standards it will have to meet?
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It will meet Euro III norms because that is the law. Safety also will not be or cannot be compromised as the laws are very stringent and the Tata's will not build something that can be criticised on any empirical parameters.
It will be better than all the two wheelers because it uses four stroke technology while most two wheelers use two stroke.
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I see Business Week is saying that Renault-Nissan and several others are looking at this segment of the market. They also report on the Tata:
"Tata's model is a real car with four doors, a 33-horsepower engine, and a top speed of around 80 mph. The automaker claims it will even pass a crash test. And while the car probably won't win any beauty contests, it's no ugly duckling either, according to the handful of industry insiders who have been given a glimpse. The rest is top secret, but Tata engineers are already testing a prototype as the clock ticks toward a late 2008 launch."
I also read that FIAT is consulting on the car.
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Yes ! The famous Italian design firm which designed the Fiat Palio is designing this car. Incidentally the Palio is the Fiat's World car.
Fiat has forged a global tie up with Tata Motors and is working on manufacturing cars in colloboration with the Tata's globally and if the Tata's get the deal for Jaguar and Rover, who knows what can happen to the global Auto industry which is dependent on the Asian Markets.