UK Top Gear’s Jeremy Clarkson once described the Tata Nano as a Pokemon.
The Tata Nano may soon be no more after a 10-year run.
What is happening to the Nano?
Once billed as the world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano could soon die out due to new regulations and emissions rules.
Adhering to those rules would require “major investment”, maker Tata Motors told wire service AFP.
If Tata is unable to meet the new requirements, it could stop making and selling the car from April 2020.
“We may not invest in upgrading all the products and Nano is one of them,” Mayank Pareek, president of passenger vehicles at Tata said.
What is the Tata Nano?
The diminutive five-door was launched to much fanfare on Jan 10, 2008.
At the time, Tata Motors said the car would be priced at one lakh rupees, or US$2,500, which would make the car more affordable for large families who would otherwise ride motorbikes.
To keep prices low, features like a radio/CD player were optional.
Airbags were not available, and even air-conditioning was optional on the base model.
Notable features were the three lug-nuts per wheel and the single windscreen wiper.
The Nano’s boot was originally only accessible via the interior, but the 2015 refresh made the car a full hatchback.
Powering all of that was a 0.6-litre, 2-cylinder motor producing all of 37hp at 5500rpm.
It had a four-speed manual transmission (four-speed auto optional) driving the rear wheels and could hit a blistering 105km/h.
How long to reach 100km/h, you ask? Good question: that was taken care of in 30 seconds, according to Tata.
Tata Nano sales
Despite high hopes for the Nano, Tata soon realised the car was rather difficult to sell.
More expensive than a motorbike, the Nano was hamstrung by quality and perception issues.
Considering a “poor man’s car”, it never really caught on with its target audience.
“It was a marketing failure,” Hormazd Sorabjee, the editor of Autocar India magazine, told AFP on Friday.
Tata expected to sell around 250,000 Nanos per year, but ended up selling only 74,500 between 2011 and 2012 at its peak.
