GIVEN that is was designed to
be the world’s cheapest car, should it matter whether the Tata Nano is any
fun to drive? After all, base models start in India at $2,200 including taxes
and fees — less than a quarter
of the sticker price of the least expensive new cars in the United States.
Impressive as this rock-bottom bottom line may be, it took squealing tires to convince me of the Nano’s merits.
From behind the wheel of a bright-yellow
model at Tata Motors’ engineering and testing center here in a suburb
of Pune, an industrial city some 60 miles southeast of Mumbai, the Nano proved
agile and fun to hustle around
the test track. The rear wheels could even be coaxed into a sports car-style
slide. I found the Nano hugely entertaining,
although the engineer riding shotgun beside me — who seemed slightly queasy
— might have had a different view.
The turtle-shape four-door comes
in three trim levels: base, midlevel CX and the top-of-the-line LX in which
I spent
much of my time. This version has air-conditioning and power front windows.
Interestingly, for a car forged in the
spirit of frugality, the relatively costly (US$3,800) LX has proved to be
the most popular Nano, Tata Motors says,
accounting for more than half the orders.
Indian customers have reasons
to avoid the barest-bones model, which lacks air-conditioning, power brakes
and even map pockets in the doors. The spoil-yourself LX comes with frills
like central locking, body-color bumpers,
fancier seat and door trim, including map pockets; cup holders in the console,
foglights and an outlet for charging a cellphone.
The LX even has a small spoiler that presumably helps to keep it anchored
to the road in the unlikely event of high speeds.
(The top speed is around 65 miles an hour.)
While cost containment was a
big factor in the Nano’s development, safety features were not.
While all Nanos have three-point safety belts, there are no air bags or antilock
brakes.
The steering is not power-assisted,
but the car’s light unloaded weight (1,320 pounds) and tight turning radius
(13.1 feet)
make it nimble. This proved especially useful when Tata Motors allowed a
group of journalists to leave the test track and
drive through the noontime scrum on city streets.
Cheap though it is, I did not
find the Nano to be so cheap that it squeaked. Nor did I hear any rattles
on the cratered local roads,
which made a credible stand-in for Manhattan’s potholes. The tiny 12-inch
wheels coped admirably with the rough terrain,
and the power-assisted brakes — old-style drums, not discs — brought the car
to a reassuring stop.
An easy to modulate clutch and
sharply defined gates in the 4-speed manual transmission made rowing through
the gears
a breeze. There is no radio — not even as an option — to drown out cabin
noise, but thankfully the interior din was limited
to the whoosh of the air-conditioner and the distant putt-putt of the 624
cc 2-cylinder engine mounted in the rear.
For comparison, that 0.6-liter engine is less than half the size of the 1.5-liter
power plants in the Toyota Yaris and Honda Fit.
Acceleration does not impress:
from a stop, the Nano takes around 30 seconds to reach 60 miles an hour —
twice as long
as the slowest gasoline-powered new car in America, the Smart ForTwo. And
during my test drive, performance deteriorated
noticeably when four or five people were in the car.
Tata Motors prefers to talk about
this engine’s carbon-dioxide emissions, which the company says are among
the lowest
for Indian cars, and fuel economy of 50 miles a gallon.
Despite its seeming power deficit,
in the cut and thrust of Indian traffic the Nano proved to be more of a hare
than a tortoise.
The Nano easily zipped around the ponderous trucks and wheezing auto rickshaws
— noisy three-wheel taxis — clogging
the streets. Though only 122 inches long (two feet shorter than a Mini Cooper),
clever packaging somehow provides plenty
of room for four full-size adults.
Visibility is excellent because
of an upright seating position and an airy greenhouse. But the lack of an
exterior passenger-side
mirror — another casualty of cost containment — seemed not just a serious
nuisance but a significant safety issue.
Throughout the car are reminders
of the engineers’ adherence to a squeaky-tight budget, aimed at holding the
starting price
to Tata’s promise of 100,000 rupees, or $2,054. (With taxes and fees included,
the price to consumers is about $150 more.)
Cost-cutting tricks include a
bare-bones dashboard made of a single piece of plastic, adaptable to markets
with either
right- or left-hand drive. There is only one windshield wiper and no outside
opening for the luggage compartment.
The hinges and hardware required
for a hatchback would have added too much cost, Tata’s engineers said.
So cargo has to be awkwardly loaded from inside the cabin after first folding
down the rear bench seat.
Buyers may want to factor chiropractor bills into the final cost of ownership.
The car does come with a spare tire, which is stored in the nose.
And while the Nano is intended
to provide affordable all-weather transportation for people who lack the money
to
buy existing cars, Tata Motors hopes the car’s penny-pinching charm will
captivate truly frugal customers around the world.
Mr. Tata even has the United States in his sights.
At the Geneva auto show in March,
Mr. Tata announced that a better-equipped Nano would arrive in Europe by 2011.
Fitted with air bags, a wider track between the wheels, revised bumpers and
a more powerful 3-cylinder engine, the
Nano Europa will meet European safety and emission standards, he said, while
also selling as the lowest-price car
in every market where it competes.
An American version based on
the Europa is also under development, Mr. Tata confirmed during an interview
at the
Geneva auto show, and could arrive around the same time. Company officials
say a hatchback and an automatic
transmission are both in the works.
