Automaker Tata Motor's much hyped ‘world's cheapest' car Nano has failed to meet expectations as it witnessed a steep decline to 509 units in November this year as compared to 3,065 units sold in the previous month.
The decline came during the month when the company had asked customers to bring back the people's car to add safety devices to prevent it from catching fire.
While the company had insisted it was not a ‘recall', it said that the addition of safety devices, a lesson learnt from some of its brand new Nanos catching fire, was optional.
Even during October, Nano failed to enthuse buyers and witnessed only two per cent growth as compared to the same month year ago.
Interestingly, Nano's sales stood at 5,520 units in September, up 61 per cent from the same month last year.
Even on a year-on-year basis, Nano sales during November was down by 85 per cent over the same period last year. In August, the sixth incident of a Nano catching fire since the car was commercially launched in March 2009, was reported in the national capital, three months after a company probe declared the car was “absolutely safe”.
Tata Motors sales up
However, the company witnessed a marginal increase of one per cent in its total sales at 54,622 units in the month as compared to 54,108 units sold in the year-ago period.
