Tata's Nano: The struggling people's car

When it was introduced in early 2009, the egg-shaped Tata Nano was billed as a modern-day people’s car, an ultracheap vehicle that would bring greater mobility to the masses of India and, eventually, the world. But those ambitions have stalled — for now, at least.

Though car sales have shot up across India, because of an economy that is growing at nearly 9 per cent annually, sales of the Nano have been falling for the last four months. Its maker, Tata Motors, sold only 509 Nanos to its dealers in November — a stark contrast to the 9,000 it delivered in July. Last year, when media coverage and auto writers’ praise were stoking demand, Tata had orders for more than 200,000 Nanos, which has a list price starting at about Rs1.30 lakh.

But as Tata has struggled with problems like production delays and fires in some of the cars, rival cars like the Maruti Suzuki Alto have overtaken the Nano. The Alto, which starts at Rs 2.80 lakh had sales of more than 30,000 in November, making it India’s best-selling car last month.

Last week the Tata company announced that it would extend the warranty on the Nano, including those that have already been sold, to four years, from 18 months.

The Nano’s celebrated rollout had helped prompt other big automakers, like General Motors and Renault-Nissan, to announce plans for ultracheap people’s cars of their own for sale in India and other developing countries. Those would-be competitors are still expected to appear in the next two years.

But the Nano’s poor showing could give pause to corporate executives and policy makers, eager to see goods and services sold to people of modest means.

Analysts say the Nano situation demonstrates it may not be sufficient to make cheaper, smaller versions of existing products to win over that broad base of customers.
Companies, they say, must also make sure the products are widely available and are seen as safe, useful and alluring.

“The bottom of the pyramid continues to be where the action is,” said Hormazd Sorabjee, editor of Autocar India. “But the aspirations of people are moving up. People want to jump into something more substantial.”

That seems evident from the booming car market in India, where total sales climbed more than 22 per cent, to nearly 203,000 in November. The most popular cars here are small, fuel-efficient hatchbacks that sell for Rs 4.5 lakh or less. Maruti Suzuki, a division of the Japanese auto maker Suzuki, now sells nearly half of all cars in India.

Tata Motors, which is part of India’s biggest business conglomerate, the Tata Group, ranks third behind Hyundai of South Korea, whose top seller is the i10, a small car that starts at Rs 3.5 lakh. Tata, which started as a locomotive and truck maker, has gradually built market share in the car business over the last 20 years on the strength of modestly priced cars and sport utility vehicles. The Nano was Tata’s big bid to shake up the car market in India and then go global — first in other developing countries and then, if all went as planned, Europe and possibly even the United States.

The idea had been to sell the same Indian version of the Nano in other developing markets, but offer a more powerful and costlier version in developed countries. The Indian model is a four-door car that can seat up to five people; its air-cooled engine is in the back, like the original Volkswagen Beetle.

The Nano was the brainchild of Ratan Tata, the chairman of the Tata Group, who told his engineers to build a car that would sell for Rs1 lakh to people who would otherwise be making do with motorcycles and scooters. It is common to see Indian families of four riding on motorcycles with the father upfront, the mother sit
ting sidesaddle with a baby in her arms and a child sandwiched between them.

But the Nano has been troubled almost from its inception. The company’s production plans were thrown off kilter in 2008 when farmers, led by regional politicians, protested that the state of West Bengal had forcibly acquired land at low prices for a factory where the Nano and its parts would be made. Tata had to relocate the factory to another state, Gujarat — causing it to take more than a year and a half to fill orders for the first 100,000 cars.

More recently, the Nano has been hurt by reports of fires in a handful of cars. In one widely publicised instance, a family was taking its new Nano home from a dealership in Mumbai when smoke started billowing from the back of the car. Soon, the entire car was engulfed in flames. There were no injuries — other than to the Nano’s image.

In denial

Tata Motors has steadfastly denied that there was anything wrong with the car’s design or its parts. It has said that fires were caused by “foreign
electrical equipment” found on top of the exhaust system. It has offered to retrofit Nanos with extra safety features and has taken pains to say that its offer does not amount to a recall.

But analysts, customers and others have found those explanations and the company’s offer wanting. What were these foreign objects? What is the function of the new safety features, and why weren’t they part of the car in the first place?

“The company has just mishandled the whole thing,” said Darius Lam, an analyst at JD Power & Associates. “First, the company said it was no big deal. Then, it was just some foreign objects.” Lam added that it was still not clear what had caused the fires and whether the problem had been fully addressed.

In a written response to questions, the company said that it had thoroughly investigated the fires and found that the car was safe, but that it had decided to improve the exhaust and electrical systems to reassure customers.

A spokesman says sales of the Nano are now back on the rise, as the company makes cars  available for immediate purchase in more sites around the country, rather than taking only orders. The company has also started displaying the car and offering test drives through new small showrooms in smaller cities to reach people who may not be comfortable walking into conventional car dealerships.

“As we began open sales, our learning was that, even though the Tata Nano is affordable for thousands of customers who do not own a car, it is still a significant decision to enter the four-wheeler category,” Debasis Ray, a company spokesman said in a written statement.

Some Nano owners — there are now more than 71,000 — praise the car’s performance, its fuel efficiency (41 miles or more to the gallon) and its surprisingly spacious interior.
“I have really enjoyed driving the car,” said Deeksha Dhawan, a 21-year-old architecture student whose father bought the top-end Nano, which she has decorated with stickers of Mickey Mouse, for about Rs 2.47 lakh. The family’s primary car is a WagonR, a bigger hatchback made by Maruti Suzuki, which starts at Rs 3.30 lakh.

Despite the Nano’s rough road so far, analysts say that Tata Motors, which also owns Jaguar and Land Rover, has the financial and technical resources to turn the situation around. But first, they say, Tata has to more clearly answer questions about the car’s safety. And then it has to come up with a better marketing and sales strategy.  “The sales numbers don’t really reflect what will be the long term potential for it,” said Sorabjee of Autocar. “It’s early days.”