[avishar]

However i believe at the end of the day this 509 sales is a abnormality.I think it will bounce back but it will settle in the 3000-4000 range,but not the gamechanger as it was touted to be.What say people?

[amit162]

In fact Nano is a proper car. The initial sharp engine noise settles down after some time as the engine becomes smoother with use.Most engines do make similiar noise if you stand in front of the car - but yes the bonnet and the body provides a shield which suppresses the noise. There is no such cladding for the Nano. Inside there is no such sound to bother you though. Also the seats , steering gear shift etc are solid like any other car and overall the car doesnt give any flimsy feel.The AC is good, so is the heater.The cabin is airy and spacious and the high seats result in good visibility and a commanding view. We bought it of the shelf on 31st Oct 2010. A lot of people probably pre-poned their purchase to avoid the price rise and hence would be counted in the October sales figure- whose purchase would otherwise have been reflected in November ! My wife finds it very convenient to go around in. Overall its a city go about and its great to drive around very crowded narrow roads .
The car really doesnt need a power steering as the engine load is not on the front which makes turning it quite easy even presently.

[Ajaybiz]

It could have been success if the price was really 1L.
As after spending 2L+ what we are getting is Noisy 2 cylinder under powered engine, battery inside cabin, fuel cap inside front bonnet, cable operated clutch and accelrator, wheels which rubs the body if sharp turns are taken, quality issue and people are getting far better cars if another 1L is added to this.

[msdivy]

One segment Nano is trying to woo is two wheelers. One factor (among others) is sales experience. When I visited TVS showroom with a friend, experience was fantastic. But when I visited TATA showroom, hardly anybody gave any information on Nano. Nano salesperson had gone for TD. There were 2 other, one for Vista & other for Manza. But they wanted Nano person to talk to us - all they could tell was on road price. Again there was huge queue for TD and receptionist told us we have to wait 2 hours. Atleast on holidays they must have more than one TD vehicle. Nevertheless, not a great experience.

[amit162]

I have not had the wheels rubbing against the body in sharp turns in my Nano.The car sure doen't feel underpowered in the city. Infact, with a lighter body, we often tend to zip ahead of much bigger cars.Opening the small bonnet to fill petrol is no big issue once you get used to the idea.The moment you stop at a petrol pump you simply pull the bonnet release lever next to you - the attendant in the petrol station takes over from there.The Nano cx costs around Rs 1.67 lakhs for us on road (Euro III) with AC and heater.

[manz]

A great thread but i guess all the speculations and writing off the car based on one month's rock bottom numbers are a little too premature.

I think someone had a vision; a vision to build a people's car; a car for the masses. However, that got translated to just creating a cheap car. If TATA had not played the 1lac-cheapest-car card, i think the fate of Nano would have been entirely different.

The headlines screamed and the newsreaders screeched saying that NANO is cheap car. Now think about me as the target audience. You give me a car that might be within my budget (not really given that its not 1lac OTR), but you also give me a badge with it that says ''I-bought-a-cheap-car"! And Indians (all classes) are very status/image conscious. I am wondering how did a company that understands the Indian psyche so well, falter so badly.

What NANO needs is a brand re-positioning. I know a lot of people who have TDed the car and think it will be a great car for city driving and daily commute but are staying away because of the car's current image. Try and market the car to those guys. The moment you have the urban corporate crowd picking up NANO as there commute cars there will be an automatic shift in the image. The car will then become more desirable to people in non-urban areas as well. The USP of the car cannot be the price tag anymore.

[greenhorn]

just another thought. How many urban buyers who can barely shell out 1l for a car can afford to park it ? A bike can be crammed into an alley or the side of a house or even inside it. A person who has a hard time coughing up 2L for a car will have a harder time getting space to keep it, and given my experience with their service quality and cost, dont even want to go into maintainence!

[freakmuzik]

Here is a link that i found somewhere else in the forum:

The Hindu Business Line : Nano production to be ramped up soon

According to it, TM says that the sales dip would be present for 2-3 months. This article was published on Oct 10, 2010. So i guess we have to wait till January 2011 or at least December 2010 to get to know the state of the Nano exactly.

[azifali]

I think everything about the car is wrong.

Tata wanted a car smaller than the Indica and went on to commit something at a ridiculous price point without actually worrying about engineering costs and overall quality of the product.

So what we have is a consolation prize - a very cheap product that has kept making news for being cheap, low quality engine (jutting out, noisy), bad sales model (95% booking cost?? was idiotic), lottery system, too many announcements for 2 years before the car hit the road, bad press due to fire issues, very low marketing spend etc etc...

What they should have done is launched a car at an alto price point...and used the economies of scale to drive costs down. Also, it wouldn't have hurt to use an existing platform from somewhere else instead of doing the whole frugal engineering bit...no one benefited.

[u_chill]

I'd say the Nano still continues to be a world benchmark in it's category. What went wrong is the Tatas' blinkered approach to quality and customer service. The market for this car is very much around-they are only waiting for Nano v2. In the software world, phrases like "rapid deployment" are usually followed by "bug fixing." For a car almost all the characteristics that the original veedub bug had in its early days, a comeback is imminent once the marketing and QC guys get their act together.

[anku94]

My mom, who is an occasional Activa driver, fell in love with the Nano when she rode one of her co-workers. She felt it was the perfect vehicle for her, and there won't be any financial issue as well.

Although this was more of a wish than a plan to buy one in the next month, I am not too happy with that.

Reason : I know it's a very good car for that price, but during the research for our first car (Spark), I saw a trend, and I formulated a rule.

Two lacs is what it takes to build a car body, engine, and other critical components. Every penny spent over it goes into making the existing things more refined or adding a new feature.

You'd agree if you saw the difference between a brand new M800 and a brand new 4 lacs car.

So, somewhere deep down, I want her to stretch, spend as much as she can, because I know it'll give her a better car.

This, I feel, is what a lot of prospective buyers feel.

For most of the people car is a necessity, and they cannot do without one, they already have it.

For most of those for whom car is a luxury that will make life more comfortable, they are used to life without a car. They are willing to wait, and to save, so that they can get one that feels more premium.

This is what I think.

PS : Offending anyone wasn't the slightest of my intentions. Sincerest apologies if I did.

[drrajasaravanan]

Hi
Well written thread. My views reagarding your topic are
1. Migrating from a 40 thousand bike which gives you 65kmpl to a car which at its best can give you 20kmpl with the only advantage of space might be lucrative for a few but the down payment is a big letdown.
2. Poor customer service from tata motors.
3. Wrong era for the car. Affordability of the people and choices are plenty compared to when maruti 800 was introduced.
3. Availability of second hand 800's and altos which will definitely get better service if not from maruti show room from any other local workshop.
4. If at all a person saves nearly a lakh to book nano he/she will have enough choices of cars if he considers one lakh as a downpayment and can afford EMI's.
5. I was actually impressed by nano but when the fire accidents put me off. Moreover there were enough articles where the company did not give a decent reply (though they did replace the car) and one article where a new car being driven by the company provided chauffer on the first day broke down and caught fire is very discouraging. The family escaped as a motorist noticed the fire and signalled the driver. Though there are incidents with maruti 800's and hyundai santro they are few and far inbetween and the response from the company lays all doudts to rest.
I guess it a big idea with very poor execution. Hope they can still turn it around.
Cheers

[AbhiJ]

I personally think we are all overthinking it..

The nano fires are not that big a deal IMO. An i20 caught fire in Kolkata recently. Even Ferrari did a recall last month for the 458 Italia because it was catching fire!

The slow growth of Nano is the Tata syndrome. All of us know that the current nano is Nano Beta 1.0. We are waiting for the final release (V2 or similar)

Nano needs an image boost in India... both rural / urban markets. My ideas...

Rural : Ads showing off it carrying capacity.. tough built.. ability to handle bad roads etc.

Urban : Get a Hybrid version at 4 -5 lacs. It ll become the Indian version of the Prius, so celebs will buy it, hide their v8 SUV, and will pretend to be green and "holier than thou"!! Will do wonders for the image.

[simplyself]

I think the price factor is one of the reasons behind the Nano's not so spectacular success.. We associate a car with luxury, image etc.. Nano being a small car, cheap(er) one at that, it may not have been able to gain the imagination of the masses.

[roy_libran]

I believe that the Nano, at this stage, of it's lifecycle is nothing but a POC, if we consider the full lifecycle this product can and will eventually have. True, a few things have gone wrong with the design, marketing, sales strategy etc..., but I think, these are also very good inputs to Tata to pick up on what works and what does not. As someone said earlier, I'd also expect the Nano to bounce back to the 3K-4K mark pretty soon.
I am not a fan of Tata vehicles, and certainly not one of Nano, but the intent behind the Nano is great. It is now time for Tata to get the Execution right.