The Hindu Business Line : ‘Salute the engineers who created the Nano’

We designed the car with no concessions on safety or emission. This will meet all the requirements that any other car will have to meet. – Ratan Tata

Mr Ratan Tata

K. Giriprakash

New Delhi “I perhaps was more apprehensive when we launched Indica,” confessed the Tata group Chairman, Mr Ratan Tata, a few hours before the launch of its people’s car Nano, “because then it was the first time that an Indian company had undertaken to develop and produce the car in India. It had the same kind of disbelief and it was our first time,” he said

In a nearly hour-long interaction over breakfast with senior editors, Mr Tata traced the development of the Nano – more commonly known as the “one-lakh car” – and fielded questions with élan.

Excerpts from the interview:

The challenges

This is one more important milestone in our history. What we have done seems to have evoked unfortunately considerable opposition from certain quarters for a variety of reasons. I am amazed at the number of issues that people have been able to create as reasons why our car should not be in the market… This whole project started with the need to find an affordable and safe car for people and families riding on two-wheelers. We set about thinking about what can be an affordable form of primary transport. It was not our intention initially to produce a car, but to produce a low-cost transport. We went through iterations of designing rural transport, transport without doors, transport with rolling plastics flaps, then we decided that really what the people of India needed was a full-fledged low cost car with lower operating costs.

The question is should the people of India have the chance to choose something that they do not have. That brings us to what we have today – something that is small, affordable, four door and that is economical to operate.

It is a tribute to the young engineers who have worked four years on the vehicle that they have been able to achieve what most car companies internationally and, of course, domestically, have said could not be done. All around of us we have had critics who felt it cannot be done, then it should not be done, and now it should not go into production, I think these are the kinds of challenges that invigorate most of us.

We are not jeopardising the company and the business case is very strong on having a wide variety of options, or variants of the car.

On safety and emission issues

We designed the car with no concessions on safety or emission. This will meet all the requirements that any other car will have to meet. This car doesn’t compromise on safety. It will meet all the frontal crash tests, offset crash … and I will say that several cars on the roads in India will not meet all those requirements. This car has been designed to meet the latest emission norms.

On the burden of expectation

The visibility is not of our seeking or our making. Ironically the visibility that we have attracted has been one of disbelief and not one of acceptance. It is somewhat sad that in India, when an Indian company has taken up this challenge, it is Indians who are becoming its greatest critics. Even if you want to damn Tata Motors or criticise me, that is fine. Why don’t you at least salute the 500 young people who did what they did? They have done what many people said could not be done. If it doesn’t meet market requirements, the one single fact is that the market will decide, not you or us … this vehicle will change the way people will travel in India…

On competition

It looks like we will have competition. It is a vindication of what we are doing. Competition will come and it will vindicate us. You can always break new barriers. I am sure there will be others who will have more competitive solutions, using different materials. It is to be expected that new barriers will be broken. Hopefully we can ourselves break those barriers.

On corporate rivalry to the project

Any battle is in the market place in an open manner and the best product in the market place wins. I am quite willing to accept that. We find it somewhat sad when we are fighting a subterranean kind of battle, not coming out in one form or another...

On the challenge in launching the Indica and now the Nano

I perhaps was more apprehensive when we launched Indica because it was the first time that an Indian company had undertaken to develop and produce the car in India. It had the same kind of disbelief and it was our first time. So we were quite nervous. We have learnt a great deal from that experience. Today there is a feeling that you are doing a little more than producing another car. You are giving the country something that it did not have. Today we are giving the country a vehicle that it didn’t have. It is breaking new ground, much more new ground and with considerably more experience.

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