History and conception
The project to create a 1 lakh rupee car began in 2003, under the Chairman of Tata Motors, Ratan Tata. [8] The strategy behind the project was the awareness of the number of Indian families who had two wheeled transport, but couldn't afford a four wheel car,[9] and was based on the company's success in producing the low cost 4 wheeled Ace truck in May 2005.[8]
Industry convention was that a reliable car couldn't be made at such a low price, so initial media speculation was that the car would be a simple four-wheeled auto rickshaw. However, The Times of India reports that the vehicle is "a properly designed and built car".[10] The Chairman is reported to have said, "It is not a car with plastic curtains or no roof -- it's a real car." [8]
During development the company reinvented and minimized the manufacturing process, brought in innovative product design, and asked component manufacturers to look at current work and design approaches in a different perspective to produce logical and simple solutions. [10]
The car was designed at Italy's Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering, with Ratan Tata ordering certain changes during the process, such as reducing the number of windscreen wipers from two to one.
Mass motorization and climate change
As the Nano was conceived and designed around introducing the automobile to a sector of the population who are currently using eco-friendly bicycles and motorcycles, environmentalists are concerned that its extraordinarily low price might lead to mass motorization in countries like India and therefore possibly aggravate pollution and global warming as well as increase the demand for oil[20]. Rajendra Pachauri, an Indian and chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said he was "having nightmares" because of this car and added that the car represents bankruptcy of India's environmental policy. The ecology focused German newspaper die tageszeitung feels that such concerns are "inappropriate" as the Tata Nano has lower emissions compared to the average Volkswagen, and that developing countries shouldn't be denied the right to motorized mobility when industrialized countries should be looking to reduce their emissions and usage of cars.[21] Die Welt reports that the car conforms with environmental protection, and will have the lowest emissions in India.[22] In crowded metropolitan cities like Mumbai, Ratan Tata has conceived a scheme to only offer the Nano to those individuals who do not have an automobile already. The Nano will also replace many overloaded and worn-out two-stroke polluting vehicles, both two and three-wheeled.
Singur car factory land dispute
Controversies also arose about Tata's planned manufacturing unit for the car in Singur, West Bengal, where the regional government of West Bengal has allocated 997 acres (4.03 km²) to Tata Motors. The construction of the car factory on that tract of land will require fertile agricultural land and the expropriation and eviction of ca. 15,000 peasants and agricultural workers. The affected farmers fear they will receive inadequate or no compensation and therefore lose their livelihoods.[23]
Activists near Kolkata, where Tata's manufacturing unit is located, started burning the car in effigy.[24] In New Delhi, women protested wearing T-shirts bearing slogans that said, "The Rs 1 lakh car has Singur people's blood on it." [25] The Trinamool Congress alleged that Tata motors usurped the agrarian land for the construction site and have threatened to stall the manufacture of the car.[26] The 11 cases were dismissed.
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