Many Nano customers agree it was a roomy car that performed well for its price and had reasonable leg room despite its compact appearance. Nano drivers also enjoyed its small size for driving in crowded cities.
Surprisingly, the "negative image" that the Nano slowly gained over the years was due to its low price, which manufacturers thought would be its selling point. Almost all the industry experts and analysts surmise that Nano's brand image of being a cheap car boomeranged, as car ownership in India is often equated with luxury. VG Ramakrishnan, an industry expert and chief of automotive consultancy Avanteum Advisors, told DW the migration of people upgrading to inexpensive cars from two-wheelers did not occur as Tata would have wanted.
Read more: India court cracks down on vehicle pollution. The controversy dragged the company into political trouble and eventually forced Tata Motors to switch its production location to Gujarat. Still, the chief reason for Nano's lack of market success is attributed to its image as a "cheap car. He highlighted that the Nano could have tasted some success if the company had attempted to penetrate semi-urban and rural areas of India. Bendre pointed out that demand for cars at the price range starting at , rupees still exists, but added that the right consumers must be targeted.
Beyond the inadvertent undesirable marketing outcome, other factors have also played a significant role in Nano's misfiring. Its external appearance, which many have found awkward and vexatious, only made the situation worse for Nano. Read more: India's Tata Motors expands production to Indonesia. There has been speculation that Nano could bounce back in the form of a revamped electric car, considering there is growing interest in the market for environment-friendly transportation.
Nonetheless, Nano's badly hit brand image is bound to bite again if it is offered for sale under the same name. They no longer aspire for smaller cars.
The drastic decline in the sales of small cars in the same segment also indicates that people have moved on. Visit the new DW website Take a look at the beta version of dw. Go to the new dw. In , a political assassination in Sarajevo set off a chain of events that led to the outbreak of the most costly war On January 10, , a drilling derrick at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, Texas, produces an enormous gusher of crude oil, coating the landscape for hundreds of feet and signaling the advent of the American oil industry.
The geyser was discovered at a depth of over 1, feet, Harding orders U. On January 10, , President Lyndon B. Johnson asks Congress for more money to support the Vietnam War. Kennedy, had achieved nothing by The North Vietnamese use of guerrilla warfare tactics resulted On January 10, , Franklin Roosevelt introduces the lend-lease program to Congress.
As Roosevelt addressed Congress, the Battle of Britain was in Sign up now to learn about This Day in History straight from your inbox. Frank and Jesse James were both legends in their own time, though Jesse is better remembered today because of his more dramatically violent death. The Nano, however, was not always bought by the people it was intended for. Many were purchased by affluent Indians, purely for their novelty value. Dhabhar speaks of a friend, who owned several other cars, paying a premium to get his Nano shipped early.
It became, in effect, a grown-up toy. Back in the early s, close to engineers and designers spent four years developing the car.
Their achievement was was recognized with a prestigious Edison Awards in for best new product under the transportation category. The Nano faced obstacles even before the first ones reached consumers. Its original factory, in Singur, West Bengal, was mired in controversy after issues over land acquisition came up in Local farmers claimed that the site, which sits by an expressway linking the cities of Kolkata and New Delhi, was made up of forcibly acquired plots.
Mamata Banerjee, a popular politician in the state, went on a day fast to oppose the factory and violent protests broke out in the area. After two years of political opposition and judicial wrangling, Tata Motors decided to move the plant to a dedicated facility in Sanand, in the western state of Gujarat.
But it was only able to set that up in In the meantime, orders piled up.
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