[satish_appasani]

Few days back i was joking with my wife, once Tata comes out with 1 lakh car, we will buy it and replace it every year. During one year, treat it like an auto driver. At the end of one year i am guessing i will still find people who are willing to pay 60 - 70 K for the car. Now if news about Maruti is true, we have choice too.

A quick question, which would be safer? 1 lakh car or an auto?

[theMAG]

Originally Posted by satish_appasani

..A quick question, which would be safer? 1 lakh car or an auto?

An auto inside the 1-lakher.

Honestly, I dont think any other aspect will be comfortable except the price

[zakaaaaasss]

Yep agreed that this is a growing market and every Tom, Dick & Harry is trying to take advangate of the same. However, IMHO, the point of concern here in our country is that we do not have policy to dump those old junk obsolete piece of engineering named "vehicles". Its like we are constantly pouring in and nothing (very very less) is going out....With this balance, not a few years from now, we can all wonder what our roads will look like........

[anonymous]

Its looking good. Waiting to see how Tata is going to make thier design

[Zappo]

Originally Posted by rlather

Its looking good. Waiting to see how Tata is going to make thier design

Hey, suzuki always had these cars running on 660cc emgines. If it had been as easy as just porting these engines here directly it would have happened long back. Now you are extrapolating that these are the exact cars, engine, body and everything else that suzuki is plannin to bring here. Give it a break dear...

OT: Those cars have Alto written on them. They look like miniaturized WagonRs though. God, what a mish-mash.

[neoranjit]

All the ones who own bikes will upgrade to this. Seeing the sales of the bikes going down, the bike manufacturers will reduce their prices. Now all the ones who couldnt afford a bike will start getting new bikes.
But the govt will still keep thinking if they need to build more roads or if they have to fight among themselves for votes .

[1100D]

The Bikers lure of Low-running cost is for here to stay, so there is no reason to assume that these cars are going to hurt bike sales in any big way. To the most of the perceived Target audience of these cars, a bike is still a more lucrative option.

[sathya_nars]

Originally Posted by Zappo

Even that will mean too many cars on the road E_L. Along with that will come further parking woes, bigger jams, more pollution etc. However it may also mean a more streamline traffic if the number of bikers reduce on the road as a car will probably not yield so easily to these guys calisthenics capabilities on a bike in busy traffic.

Agree on parking woes, jams, etc. But it may not really help for streamline traffic, it will make it worse. Even now I see that small cars like Santro, 800, Alto, Indica, all are overtaking (and creating lots of probs like quick turns w/o signals, etc) big cars as if they drive bikes - 1L car owners would also do the same.

Originally Posted by Zappo

On a different note, it seems like suzuki (and by extension Maruti) has conceded a subtle point to the Tatas. Mr Khattar almost ridiculed the idea a year back when he said that it is almost impossible to design and build a car from scratch for that low a price. He would like to see how Tatas do it. Now they have "seen" it I guess.

Agree, I read an interview long back by Khattar who mentioned that Maruti True value offers good used cars for 1L, so Maruti doesn't consider building cars for 1L - they must have been anticipating good market for these cars, hence they decide to produce them.

Unless infrastructure is improved, these will add to existing traffic issues especially in cities like Bangalore where we already face lot of issues.

[Mayavi]

Second hand Maruti 800 over 1 lakh car...

a Propah car...

1 lakh car or Auto...

Its amusing to hear comments like the above. How many of you have done an comparative analysis of the cars before rubbishing the 1 lakh car? Other than Price what exactly do you know about the cheap car? Cheap is not always synonymous with bad quality. Intel Celeron will cost almost same as Intel Centrino to manufacture but the later is light years ahead of a celeron in terms of processing power. Not a good analogy but you get the idea.

Engine: A Maruti 800 has 37 bhp engine while the Tata car is supposed to have 30 bhp - 800 is more powerful TATA when absolute numbers are considered but meaningless if we do not know the PWR of each car. 37 BHP for 1 tonne car compared to 30 bhp for 600 Kg... which has more power?


Safety: TATA cars are more safer than Maruti's any given day thanks to their R&D and dedicated crash test facilities. Why would they skimp on safety features for a 1 lakh car. Agreed it won't have ABS, air bags and other basic safety features, but design wise it should be safer than a 800 just for being a modern design compared to a 25 year old 800.

Materials: TATA has TAML from which it can source light weight materials if needed and its own steel mills to source steel. The steel from Tata Steel would not be cheap because it has the same ownership but it would be cheap because of economies of scale - It is like doubling the orders for Indica. More cars made, more steel sourced, cheaper it is to make. TATA was also going to use super glues instead of welds but they reverted back to welding due to some issues.

Supply chain: TATA's 1 lakh car is not going to be sold through dedicated dealerships (that adds additional overhead) like the traditional cars. Instead it is going to be sold as a kit car, so no cars rolling off the assembly lines. The car will be assembled by the seller who sources many parts from the OEM suppliers directly instead of TATA. These OEM suppliers are going to be located in the same singur area where TATA is setting up plant. So the dealer may only get the chasis, body and engine from TATA and audio, seats etc may come from the OEM suppliers directly. This will result in huge cost savings.

And how much is it going to save over the Maruti 800? About 80K rupees which is not an unimaginable number considering all the cost savings mentioned above. Sounds unrealistic? Consider this, you can buy a 4 chair dining table set from Walmart (self-assemble) and it costs 100 bucks. Same set at a regular store in fully assembled form costs over 150 bucks. This is the same principle that TATA is going to use.

So skeptics, please keep the above tough to implement but not impossible cost cutting measures in mind before rubbishing cheap cars. You may find that you are laughing at no one but yourself. That TATA 1 lakh car is already undergoing track testing at tata's facilities and is almost production ready

[Mayavi]

And if you still aren't convinced, consider this example:
A camry costs around 20 lakhs in India but in US dollar terms it cost 10 lakhs. So if camry were to sell for 12 lakhs in India, would it be any less capable than the 20 lakh camry? No, it only means that Toyota has figured out a way to beat the tax regime and pass on the benefits to consumer.

[theMAG]

Supply chain: TATA's 1 lakh car is not going to be sold through dedicated dealerships (that adds additional overhead) like the traditional cars. Instead it is going to be sold as a kit car, so no cars rolling off the assembly lines. The car will be assembled by the seller who sources many parts from the OEM suppliers directly instead of TATA. These OEM suppliers are going to be located in the same singur area where TATA is setting up plant. So the dealer may only get the chasis, body and engine from TATA and audio, seats etc may come from the OEM suppliers directly. This will result in huge cost savings.

This mode of operation calls for a massive paradigm shift. I'm not sure how existing dealers might want to cope with this kind of an SSI setup required for such an assembly operation

[ported_head]

Originally Posted by Mayavi

Supply chain: TATA's 1 lakh car is not going to be sold through dedicated dealerships (that adds additional overhead) like the traditional cars. Instead it is going to be sold as a kit car, so no cars rolling off the assembly lines. The car will be assembled by the seller who sources many parts from the OEM suppliers directly instead of TATA. These OEM suppliers are going to be located in the same singur area where TATA is setting up plant. So the dealer may only get the chasis, body and engine from TATA and audio, seats etc may come from the OEM suppliers directly. This will result in huge cost savings.

I'd be quite worried about that. Dealer ethics are more questionable than the manufacturer themselves. Though neither are saints. I can imagine the level of adulteration (for the want of a more appropriate term) possible should you give dealers a free hand, considering the margins per vehicle sold would be quite minimal on a Rs. 1 lakh car. I would rather like to pay 10k a vehicle more, and keep dealer involvement as minimal as possible.

[Mayavi]

I Agree, we are not the most ethical country in the world and people would do anything if they can make a buck. I hope TATA places some stringent QA checks and train all its dealers on SOP. Anyway, this was the original plan as of last year, many things might have changed since then to account for the 25% price hike.

[esteem_lover]

Originally Posted by Mayavi

How many of you have done an comparative analysis of the cars before rubbishing the 1 lakh car? Other than Price what exactly do you know about the cheap car? Cheap is not always synonymous with bad quality. Intel Celeron will cost almost same as Intel Centrino to manufacture but the later is light years ahead of a celeron in terms of processing power. Not a good analogy but you get the idea.

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.

Originally Posted by Mayavi

Safety: TATA cars are more safer than Maruti's any given day thanks to their R&D and dedicated crash test facilities.

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

Originally Posted by Mayavi

Why would they skimp on safety features for a 1 lakh car.

Because they want to cut costs ???

Originally Posted by Mayavi

Materials: TATA has TAML from which it can source light weight materials if needed and its own steel mills to source steel. The steel from Tata Steel would not be cheap because it has the same ownership but it would be cheap because of economies of scale - It is like doubling the orders for Indica. More cars made, more steel sourced, cheaper it is to make.

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.

Originally Posted by Mayavi

Supply chain: TATA's 1 lakh car is not going to be sold through dedicated dealerships (that adds additional overhead) like the traditional cars. Instead it is going to be sold as a kit car, so no cars rolling off the assembly lines. The car will be assembled by the seller who sources many parts from the OEM suppliers directly instead of TATA. These OEM suppliers are going to be located in the same singur area where TATA is setting up plant. So the dealer may only get the chasis, body and engine from TATA and audio, seats etc may come from the OEM suppliers directly. This will result in huge cost savings.

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.

Originally Posted by Mayavi

That TATA 1 lakh car is already undergoing track testing at tata's facilities and is almost production ready

Yeah, i heard that before too.
cheers

[1100D]

Originally Posted by esteem_lover

? ??? 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.

E_L thats the same mistake all of us are making, trying to baseline our expectation on the cheapest currently available car of the shelf. We have not yet seen the result out of Tata stables. But insiders who have seen it are mostly impressed. Agreed, we do not yet know the animal in terms of how it will perform in the beginning, but then we have all tracked the Indica story.

Just for a reference, think pre-1998 when the Indica came out, do you recall the kind of waves it created the effects of which is pretty much predominant till this very day.

So lets all wait for this insect.