Nano rolls out of new home

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Tata Motors on Wednesday inaugurated a factory that will produce its super-cheap compact Nano car. The new factory, at Sanand in Gujarat will allow the company to deliver the world’s cheapest car in significant numbers. The new facility has been completed almost two years after violent protests derailed the company’s earlier plan to set shop in West Bengal.

Tata Motors chairman, Mr Ratan Tata, and Gujarat Chief Minister, Mr Narendra Modi, together drove the first car — a sunshine yellow Nano — off the assembly line shortly before 1 pm. “We owe you a great debt of gratitude for having made this happen,” the Tata Sons chairman told Mr Modi.
Mr Tata, however, had to cancel his press conference as rain stormed the city.
Tata Motors said it would ramp up production in phases at Sanand to 250,000 cars a year, which will be easily expandable to 350,000 cars.
Deliveries from the Sanand plant will begin this month. Next to the 725-acre plant, housed on former state grazing land, is a 375 acre park where 41 key component vendors are already setting up shop, officials said. Since its March 2009 launch, 30,763 Nanos — which sell for just over Rs 1 lakh in India — have hit the streets.
The Nano was meant to herald a new era in car making, in which even the rising lower income groups could afford to trade two-wheelers for a car.
The company had received over 2 lakh bookings for the Nano in May 2009, when it launched the car. Many customers were put off by the long wait because of limited production capacity.
Interestingly, while the basic version of the car is priced at Rs 1 lakh, only 20 per cent of the sales are for this version.
Analysts say that almost half of the cars being sold are the top end version of the Nano with all the bells and whistles, which costs Rs 1.8 lakh.