Tata’s one lakh rupees car

Although I am not a motor enthusiast, I am thrilled to see how the mch hyped, awaited , Tata’s one lakh rupees car is going to be. Buzz is that Tata has plans to unveil the one lakh rupees car in New Delhi Auto expo which is to be held between january 10 and January 18 2008.

The car is expected on road by the latter part of 2008. As with every new product, there are both optimistic and pessimistic views on the car. Lot of emails have been floating around with pictures of the car flooding the corporate mail exchange servers, but the integrity of it cannot be believed until we see it for ourselves.

The pessimistic views are from the competitors and other motor companies in India who speculate that Tata motors has to compromise on quality and safety standards by offering at such a price. Socialists criticize that such cars are not necessary in the already congested Indian roads. Imagine a city like Bangalore or Chennai, which is already struggling to breathe amidst heavy traffic and high pollution levels. But Ratan Tata, the chairman of the Tata group is much confident by brushing aside all these remarks. He says that the new car will be a milestone in Indian car industry and it will abide by the safety standards. This reminds us of the mobile revolution created by Reliance some years ago. When Reliance communications spoke about mobile phones within Rs.1000, none of them believed it. Reliance emerged as a winner and is one of the fastest growing mobile service providers in the Indian market. Let’s see how the Tata group handles this challenge.

I thought of buying a car before a year but I am very much happy to use the public transport system now. Considering the fact that I am spending 4 hours of my daily life commuting to office, I am not sure if I can handle Chennai’s traffic with a car. Also the price of fuel kept increasing which made me to drop the idea of buying a car. Let me see if Tata’s new car induces me into the idea again. I also need to think on the terms that neither the traffic nor the fuel cost is going to go down because of this new entrant. Let me see how it goes. Let me wait till the Auto Expo. At least this makes me thrilled and curious.

P.S.:- What will the Tata motors name this car? Is it already out and have I missed it? If not any guesses?