[Mayavi]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

Mayavi, though i believe that Ratan Tata is not a fool to cook up something that he cant serve, the idea of cheap car is something like less than the cost of a bike which is more in the cielo region. Now what sort of detailed analysis have you done before coming out with such sweeping statements as above ? ??? Yeah, i did a comparative analysis & i found that the M-800 is the least of a contraption that you could call a car & if TATA comes out with an equal 'car', i am sure there will be plenty of takers for it & you will be happy.

I am not sure if I made any 'sweeping' statements in the above post, I was only requesting other people to not judge a car solely based on its price. Yep, I would be very happy if Tata car is on par with 800 and so would be the millions of prospective 800 buyers and them millions are the target market and not the Camry buyers.
As for your detailed analysis, I gather from your post that you have only done it on existing cars and came up with a benchmark. That is a good benchmark but your analysis doesn't say anything about the future car. A good analysis would be to compare the process steps and see if there is any money to be saved. I outlined those steps and believe that there is plenty of money to be saved and still come up with a decent car. If you do not for whatever reason you just have to wait for a year to be proven right or wrong.

Really ?? are you talking about the gauge of the steel or are you talking about impact absorbing & distribution capacity ?

Crumple zones. Indica has them, others don't. TATA has a dedicated indoor crash test site and I have seen pictures of it with the crash test dummies. I am sure that they wont go through all that crash testing with no improvements in their car designs. Does a maruti 800 have them?

Because they want to cut costs ???

err... lack of ABS is a cost cut feature and so is lack of ABS. But lack of crumple zones whose design R&D has already been paid for by sales of Indica? How are they going to save money on that?

Wouldn't that apply to any manufacturer ? unless you are saying that TATA WILL undervalue the price of steel to bring out the car cheaper.

How many car makers have their own steel companies? TATA doesn't have to undervalue anything, just the economies of scale and the fact that the money is going back into their own pocket will bring the cost down. TATA is able to make Indica at a competitive price tag because it sources some of the steel inhouse, atelast used to. If you didn't already know, TATA is the worlds lowest cost steel manufacturer and part of the reason (other than labour) is that it has its own mines.

Hmmm, that means more taxes, dont you think ?? at least i see more Excise duty in this plan. These things may well apply to walmart in US, but not in India where the taxes are big, i hope you do understand that.

No, I do not understand what you are saying. Please explain how the taxes are going to be high just because the car is a kit car. Tax wise, a CBU import > SKD > CKD. Same should apply for made in india stuff, no?

Yeah, i heard that before too.
cheers

Well, I only heard it two months back when Ratan Tata gave an interview.
Tata had many prototypes that did not see the light of the day and they include the 1 lakh car prototypes too. So could be that you heard about the others.

All I am trying to say is that it is very easy to be a skeptic and rubbish everything but it is very difficult to be a believer and do something worthwhile leading me to wonder if it is an Indian trait. Personally, I like to believe that 1 lakh car is possible just because Ratan Tata says so. If not for anything, it is because the man is spending millions on this effort and if a successfull business man is spending his million, I tend to believe him rather than believe someone who has no stake in the effort.

[1100D]

Originally Posted by Mayavi

Crumple zones. Indica has them, others don't. TATA has a dedicated indoor crash test site and I have seen pictures of it with the crash test dummies. I am sure that they wont go through all that crash testing with no improvements in their car designs. Does a maruti 800 have them?


.

Othercar makers models are actually international models and actually have been validated by the makers elsewhere, so no separate crash-test validation is done in India. However for the Domestic automakers the story is different, hence Tata had to get a facility setup which will help them cater to the international markets better given the forthcoming or existing safety laws in some of the countries Tata caters to. So its not to be seen as something TATA is doing which others have not, but yes, comparison with the other domestic car makers can surely be made.

Crumple Zones are not as big as what people perceive them to be, the theory of controlled deformation has been existent since long and is already present in the 800, but to what extent the overall structure works towards protecting the occupants can always be questioned. The M-800 being the 80's Alto cannot be expected to be of the same safety rating as the new-gen Alto which again was governed by newer safety jurisdictions.

Yeah so the 800 is an old car and hence its lack of perceived safety is mostly due to its dated design rather than cost. I am sure the Tata 1 lakh car, being a new-gen car and which will have implications in some select international markets will be dictated to be safer than what the M-800 was dictated to be (or dictated at all) in the 80's.

[Rekha]

IMO, if a manufacturer can offer a car for 1 lakh, there will always be a trade off. Tata and Maruti are not into charity and they mean business. so if customers are to take the advantage of price, then they should compromise on some basic essential stuff too.

BTW, even if these cars are VFM, how many of you guys think that this market(segment which is below A low) is here to stay? market expansion will be there after the product launch but will they be able to grow? we know that Indian automotive industry is growing and the % of customers upgrading their cars(or additional car owners) keep increasing.

also that through 1 lakh car these manufacturers wont be able to draw volumes from two wheeler segment. a want can be created but never a need!

[Mayavi]

Originally Posted by 1100D

I am sure the Tata 1 lakh car, being a new-gen car and which will have implications in some select international markets will be dictated to be safer than what the M-800 was dictated to be (or dictated at all) in the 80's.

This was exactly what I have been saying all along. That by virtue of it being a newer design, the 1 lakh car should (ideally speaking) have more safety features by default.

Also I was comparing TATA cars with others in the same class/price range. While crumple zones is not something that TATA invented, incorporating them into their design and making progressive improvements is something we should all appreciate. I read an article several years ago about TATA's crash testing facility which has several pictures of the insides and also the improvements made to original indica.

About international cars, I wonder if the products they sell in India are comparable to those they sell in their home markets - both safety and feature wise.

[1100D]

Originally Posted by Mayavi

About international cars, I wonder if the products they sell in India are comparable to those they sell in their home markets - both safety and feature wise.

Crumple Zones are built into the design of the bodyshell, the Bumper and all load bearing members upfront or at the rear. Since all these cars have the same bodies, so it is safe to assume that these cars have it too.

Its not like a add-on feature, say like ABS.

But other feature wise its always known well that the car companies dont really offer everything that they offer elsewhere in India, neither do Tata. Do we yet have an Indica with ABS in India?

However I would agree with you on the fact that had it not been for the Indica and its shoe-string effect we would have bought Santro's for close to 5 lakhs in India now. Entry level mid-sizers would almost be unreachable for many who have mid-sizers now. Tata cars have redefined price-point expectancy and thats what the 1 lakh car is again going to do. Infact you can safely expect another shift of price-point expectation with the Indica soon.

[Mayavi]

Yes, same body if it is the exact same car say the SX4. But the Pajero is a dated design and being sold as a new car here, right?

[1100D]

Originally Posted by Mayavi

Yes, same body if it is the exact same car say the SX4. But the Pajero is a dated design and being sold as a new car here, right?

The New Pajero's are sold as Montero and the old body-on-frame Pajero's are sold as Pajero's. But there are a few takers for Body-on-Frame layout given that its dated in terms of the real frequency and rigour of off-road usage that SUV's of that price bracket are supposed to endure and offcourse in terms of the engine offered. Its only selling point is the price on which it gets beaten by others.

[Zappo]

Errr... good debate you guys are carrying on. Pretty stimulating. Only one thing buddies. About the M800, AFAIK, it has almost no crumple zones. In fact the Omni has a perfect zero on that count and for the M800, the engine bay upfront does serve as a crumple zone to a limited extent but thats about it. In fact in the name of safety Maruti offers "additional body reinforcements", whatever that means.

[1100D]

The Alto SS80 (first 800) and the Alto SB308 (second and till date 800) were late 70s to early 80's models sold in Japan as Kei cars and Europe as Micro cars and had bare minimal safety requirements that time. So expecting the 800 to survive a modern crash test is expecting too much out of it, but on that count we are not even expecting it to be sold as a new car now.

I remember there was one brochure pretty old where I saw the crumple Zone stuff, but right, how really effective it was is anyones guess or maybe just a marketing gimmick, knowing the Indian buyers awareness that time.

[aaggoswami]

Crumple zones. Indica has them, others don't. TATA has a dedicated indoor crash test site and I have seen pictures of it with the crash test dummies. I am sure that they wont go through all that crash testing with no improvements in their car designs. Does a maruti 800 have them?

What?
Even the Maruti 800 has crumple zones!
All maruti cars(not sure about Gypsy) have crumple zones.
The basic job of crumple zones is to absorb the energy of the impact in case of an accident and also disperse the energy.
The indica is not the only model to have crumple zones.
The Indica's crumple zones are not the most effective ones.

The present ZEN EStilo//WagonR/Alto platform is the platform on which the cars were supplied to Mazda, Subaru,Nissan, etc companies till 2006 early.

So they have better safety then Indica.