The Tata Nano: Saviour or Polluter??

The Tata Nano

The revolutionary "peoples car" the Tata Nano which was unveiled at the Delhi auto show recently has been received with great praise as well as brickbats. Praise for innovation, for its ability to turn the automotive principles on its head and most importantly for bringing within reach safe personal transportation to the teeming millions of the third world (which was only a pipe dream until now). The brickbats have mostly flowed from the usual suspects: sundry environmentalists aghast at the impact to the environment, elitists worried that even the neighbouring sabzi wala may now own a car, and competitors forced to eat their own words.


First the facts. The Tata Nano is a wonderful example of innovation at its best and testimony to India's coming of age in manufacturing. It was developed by a team of 500 young engineers led by Girish Wagh. The team started work without any clear cut specifications. All they had was a cost target of Rs 100,000 ex showroom price in the face of ever rising raw material costs. The objective was to develop a full fledged car that at least matches the Maruti 800 in performance at half its price!! By all accounts they have done it; it fact perhaps they may have even exceeded the Maruti 800! The car is car is smaller than the 800 at 3.1 meters, but thanks to innovative designing like placing the engine at the rear, it still provides 21% more space than the 800! Its high enough for a 6 ft person to easily get in and out. In fact the car was designed keeping the tall Ratan Tata in mind. It has a 623 cc twin cylinder MPFI engine that delivers 33 PS power. The engine performance is controlled by a specially designed electronic engine management system.

When the Tatas announced plans to manufacture a $2500 car, it was greeted with scorn, derision and scepticism by the big auto companies. Now that all of them have been forced to eat crow, their response has been interesting. Maruti claim that it would not be possible to manufacture a car at this price level without compromising on safety and emission standards. There have been comments in the western media that the Nano's safety is compromised by the absence of air bags. This may be true by western standards, but in India most of the small cars including Maruti don't have air bags. So it is unfair to single out the Nano for criticism. The Nano has a sheet metal body, it has a strong passenger compartment, with safety features such as crumple zones, intrusion-resistant doors, seat belts, strong seats and anchorages, and the rear tailgate glass bonded to the body. Tubeless tyres further enhance safety. It has passed Crash and impact tests. It does not have ABS brakes but neither do the base variants of the other small cars. The Nano is no less safe than the other small cars in India and all comments questioning its safety features are malicious.

Coming to emission norms, the Nano meets the Bharat III norms stipulated in India (equivalent to Euro 3) and the Tata's claim that with a little bit of tweaking, it can be made to meet the Euro 4 norms too. Forget the 800, even the Alto which is more than three times the price of the Nano meets only the Bharat 3 norms (and neither does it have airbags). So all questions raised by competition questioning the safety and emission standards of the Nano reek of hypocrisy! The environmentalists are a different breed altogether. People like RK Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel peace price winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Sunita Narain of the Centre for Science and Environment have raised dooms day scenarios for the environment. They foresee millions of cars manufactured by the tatas every year resulting in a huge increase in green house gasses. But is it physiclly possible to actually manufacture millions of vehicles per year? Manufacturing a car is not just about the Tatas setting up production facilities. A lot depends on hundreds of third party parts suppliers, raw material supplies and suply chain issues. The Tatas have planned an initial capacity of 250000 Nanos per year and plan to ramp it up to 500000 cars in the near future. They have claimed that it is not possible to increase production beyond this level. So an increase of 500,00o cars in a country where atleast 15 million automobiles are sold every year surely does not call for panic. In fact, the nano may prove to be good for the environment. An autorickshaw too costs around the same as the nano and these pollution spewing threewheelers may be replaced by nanos. In fact auto drivers from around the country have indicated that they are open to switching over to the nano. This will do immense good to not just the environments but also to the aesthetics of our traffic.







CO2 footprint

The western media too has raised concerns about the impact to the environment by the Nano. however the per capita CO2 emissions from third world countries is almost negligible when compared to the developed countries (see figure above). The developed world has been the main contributor to pollution in the name of development and they are now concerned about the increasing pollution levels in the developing countries. Why don't they reduce the carbon footprint in their own countries now that they have achieved a good standard of life? Why don't they replace their polluting SUVs with small cars like the Nano. At 25 KM/litre, the Nano would leave a much smaller footprint. In fact this is where the environmentalists should focus on. Instead we have the developed world trying to prevent the vast majority of the poor from enjoying a better life, from the comforts of their air conditioned homes and offices.
Another bogey, that the critics are raising is congestion on India's badly maintained roads. Agreed, the roads are in bad shape and the Nano will certainly lead to more congestion. But is infrastructure development the responsibility of the Tatas? Sorry, but we have the wrong people under the cross wire here. Why don't the critics pressurise the government to get its act together and improve the infrastructure? My guess is that more than the cities the Nano will hugely transform the landscape of Indias vast hinterlands. A lot of Nanos will be sold in the villages where congestion if any is caused by Bullock carts. If the Nano does replace the Rickshaws, then the city traffic would certainly get more orderly. Think of the reduced noise pollution!!

A typical Indian family on a two wheeler

Opposition to the Nano also reeks of Elitism. What gives the right to the elite to think that only they have a right to own a car and not the next door grocer? Is it because their special status of being one of the few car owners would be no longer special? Does not the common man have the right to enjoy the luxury of owning a personal vehicle? Let us recall what made Ratan Tata consider making a peoples car. He saw a typical Indian family on a bike; the man riding it, the kid perched on the tank, the woman riding side saddle with a baby on her lap. Is this not a daily sight for us Indians? How many of us ever gave a thought that the entire family was at risk here? It is a tribute to Ratan Tata that this typical lower middle class family can now travel in a safer manner. Air bags or no air bags, I guess all of us would agree that the Nano is a whole lot safer than a Bike!! Rather than taking potshots at Ratan Tata and his band of innovators, let us raise a toast to them for making safe personal transport affordable to the masses.