[GrammarNazi]

Originally Posted by greenhorn

...On another note, There seems to be a sort of brain drain within Tata motors. A lot of good talent seems to be sent to Europe and other videsi operations...

This part seems true, a friend from the communications department at TaMo seems to have been sent off to England and is now learning German.

6 days back I'd enquired for the Aria and they said they'll get back, but even after 2 reminders - nothing yet.

It genuinely does seem like they've packed-off and left for better markets leaving India with the current products.

[vvijay]

Originally Posted by sreedotk

Mr. Behram Dahbar too joined Tata from M&M in the past year or so .

Man, this is one shocking news! From all I know him, he has been one of the backbones of M&M and bringing it into a good shape with his valuable technical inputs. Wonder what offer would have ended his association with M&M!

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by vvijay

Wonder what offer would have ended his association with M&M!

I would have loved to think a 4x4 Nano!

[Firebird]

Originally Posted by honeybee

I would have loved to think a 4x4 Nano!

Weight of transfer case and gear box will be more than the whole Nano ..... ROFL :-)

[Motard_Blr]

I agree with Jack Trout: kill the Nano brand. I am a Nano owner and I realise and appreciate the benefits the car offers. But to the non-Nano owner and lay persons, there are currently more negatives associated with the Nano brand than there are positives. Personally, I think that there is no way of economically salvaging the brand.

BUT,

the fundamental design of the car is sound and it deserves to be used rather than discarded. So I would suggest Tata to launch 2 offshoots of the Nano that are urban centric and rural centric, respectively.

For a rural centric car, see the Citroen 2 CV for reference. It was famous for being able to glide over bad roads. I would imagine such a ruralised car to have bigger wheels, more ground clearance, steel bumpers and a larger fuel tank.

And for an urban centric car, I would imagine a more refined version that would have among other features, a smoother and quieter engine, reduced NVH, better performance, smart phone connectivity, etc.

It's unlikely that Tata would go down this route but it's worth a shot to tell them what I think.

[honeybee]

Killing the brand at this point in time will only alienate existing Nano owners.

As for the rural Nano I think we need all those features in an urban vehicle too. There's not much of a difference between urban and rural roads.

[Gansan]

A person close to the company said, "Somehow it got slotted as a Rs 1-lakh car or a cheap car. Tata Motors did not intend to position it like that, but they did not do enough to manage perceptions."

http://www.google.co.in/url?sa=t&rct...,d.d2k&cad=rja

[srishiva]

Originally Posted by Gansan

A person close to the company said, "Somehow it got slotted as a Rs 1-lakh car or a cheap car. Tata Motors did not intend to position it like that, but they did not do enough to manage perceptions."

Maybe this person doesn't listen to Ratan Tata talking. Since it started, Tata wanted to make and sell a 1 lakh car. He might be half right since its not a 1 lakh car

[apachelongbow]

I guess we must give Tata a chance to set their wheels rolling. Their internal re-branding/quality control exercise seems to be working. At-least the products released now, may it be the Nano, the Vista or the Storme or Aria, all seem to have much lesser quality control/fit and finish niggles. Now it is time for Tata to tighten up their service centers, reward the good and weed out the bad.
As I mentioned in this thread before me and lot of new Tata car owners (post 2011/2012) have very few (if any) issues in their car and are pretty much satisfied with the car and the brand.. Given some time this should culminate into more sales.

[honeybee]

Originally Posted by srishiva

Maybe this person doesn't listen to Ratan Tata talking. Since it started, Tata wanted to make and sell a 1 lakh car. He might be half right since its not a 1 lakh car

Maybe you didn't go through the post launch articles on the Nano where Tata has clearly said he had never declared 1L as the target price and this was done by the media. Tatas then took it up as a challenge and priced the first few vehicles at 1L.

May not be sound marketing but definitely a great gesture.

Anyway let's set aside the history and see how it could be made an aspirational product.

[deehunk]

There was no need of this special car if it was not meant to sound like a auto-rickshaw. I recently watched a programme on TV about the making of Nano, project was screwed up at concept stage itself. They should have worked keeping a Maruti 800 as benchmark and not a 2-wheeler or 3-wheeler. It is a problem of employees trying to please their boss without any thinking, which they are still trying to resolve. Now they are about to launch a diesel version wonder what is in store for the people. If the 1 lakh price tag was only for namesake then they should have provided better interiors atleast with a good dashboard and consoles rather than making it bland for the price people are paying now, the door panels were atleast 15 years behind in time and the damping or insulation they have provided at the rear seat is not a design made for a car.

[GrammarNazi]

Originally Posted by honeybee

Maybe you didn't go through the post launch articles on the Nano where Tata has clearly said he had never declared 1L as the target price and this was done by the media. Tatas then took it up as a challenge and priced the first few vehicles at 1L.

May not be sound marketing but definitely a great gesture.

Anyway let's set aside the history and see how it could be made an aspirational product.

Those articles weren't as publicised by the media as the announcement of the 1 Lakh Car. People remember stories like, "Having seen a family riding in a Bajaj getting drenched in rain, Ratan Tata promised to make a car for 1 Lakh".

Moreover, in that case during the launch he should've said "A challenge is a challenge", whereas he mentioned "A PROMISE IS A PROMISE" and then went on to say how due to the delay (that Mamata Bannerjee caused), only the initial lot could be priced at 1 Lakh since prices of related commodities had risen.

Anyway.

Originally Posted by deehunk

There was no need of this special car if it was not meant to sound like a auto-rickshaw. I recently watched a programme on TV about the making of Nano, project was screwed up at concept stage itself. They should have worked keeping a Maruti 800 as benchmark and not a 2-wheeler or 3-wheeler...

The concept was never to reverse engineer a car to mass produce & sell it. It started off with an honest intent to make transport safer for two wheelers. Eventually he decided to take it up as a challenge. Have a look at this video :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BADj7I-6Ddc

IMO during the delay, the market, rather than acknowledging and appreciating it as a alternate safer mode of transport than a 2 wheeler, decided to shun it labeling it as a car for people who are "wannabe's" who want to be considered rich enough to own a car.

[Sawyer]

To my mind, the relatively poor FE will never allow the Nano to be accessible to the original target market. 16-18 km v 50-60 for two wheelers is a big running cost impact. Even for a version sold at 1.6 lakhs, which isn't too far from the promised price, accounting for inflation over 6 years.

[SlowRider]

Originally Posted by Sawyer

To my mind, the relatively poor FE will never allow the Nano to be accessible to the original target market. 16-18 km v 50-60 for two wheelers is a big running cost impact. Even for a version sold at 1.6 lakhs, which isn't too far from the promised price, accounting for inflation over 6 years.

To voice an opinion to the contrary, I feel it's a fair proposition. A Nano can take 4 or 5 passengers at 16-18kmpl. I do not think it's fair to compare its FE figures with a motorcycle without addressing this tiny piece of detail. For a person riding a 150cc bike or a scooter in traffic, the FE figures are in the range of 40-48km/l with 2 passengers. To ferry a family of four, you need a theoretical equivalent of 2 vehicles (though many people prefer to pull off this stunt on a single vehicle). So on a litre of fuel, four passengers will travel 20-24km. The Nano puts a roof over your head in the rain and sun, takes you around in air conditioned comfort and is much safer in the unfortunate event of an accident. Yet if you compute the FE figures, the Nano takes you 16-18km on a litre of fuel.

In other words, for every litre of petrol, that Nano goes 4-6km less when you need to move a family of 4. I believe this is in the region of FE difference between a Bajaj Discover 100 and Bajaj Pulsar 150. Not so big a penalty now, is it?

[sahakar]

Originally Posted by srishiva

Maybe this person doesn't listen to Ratan Tata talking. Since it started, Tata wanted to make and sell a 1 lakh car. He might be half right since its not a 1 lakh car

The problem with Tata companies and maybe most Indian companies is that the boss is the customer and not the real customer.

They will work to please their boss for example here Ratan, rather than end users like you and me.

The one lakh idea was Ratan's and everybody in the company blindly followed with no Plan B.

Nano may be a good car but the auto replacement placement along with some weird design choices really killed it. Not to mention the initial burning issues which still people remember and decide on not buying.

Cheers