Indian industrial giant Tata has unveiled its promised one lakh car at the New Delhi motor show this week. One lakh means 100,000 Rupees in India, which is the equivalent of €1,735 at today's exchange rate. The highly anticipated Nano micro car is around twice as expensive as locally-produced motorcycles but is well below half the price of conventional micro cars. That said, it's still a four-door, four seat car with a 33cc, 623cc, all-aluminium two-cylinder, rear-mounted petrol engine with a continuously variable transmission. Economy is rated at 5L/100km and Tata says it not only meets local crash test and emissions guidelines, it's also designed to pass "international side offset and side crash tests as well as Euro4" indicating it could be making its way to Europe before long. The Nano is a microscopic 3.1m long and 1.5m wide but its ample interior room comes from its 1.6m height. Contrary to early reports, the Nano is all metal and its low-cost construction is made possible by extensive use of pre-engineered volume parts and borrowing low-cost technology from motorcycles.
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