Tata Motors on Thursday said there were no cancellations of bookings of its low-cost small car Nano in view of recent reports of technical snags. It also said work at its upcoming Nano plant in Gujarat was going according to schedule and trial production of the world’s cheapest car would begin early next year.
“There have been no undue cancellations of the booking of Nano. Whatever cancellations are happening is normal, and it happens in the industry when there is long waiting period,” said Tata Motors President (Passenger Cars) Rajiv Dube. A few incidents of short circuits in Nano were reported recently, which the company said termed it as a minor technical glitch and ordered pre-delivery audit. “We have not recalled any of Nano car. We have sorted out the issue,” Mr. Dube added.
There are already over 800 Nano running on Indian roads, while the company is producing 2,500 to 3,000 Nano cars a month at its Pantnagar plant in Uttarkhand. Tata Motors plans to start trial production of Nano at its upcoming plant at Sanand (Gujarat) in the last quarter of the current fiscal. The company plans to ramp up production in mid-2010 to meet the demand for Nano. It will have initial production capacity of 2.5-lakh units, scalable to five-lakh units.
Mr. Dube also unveiled the company’s latest offering — Indigo Manza — the premium sedan. Indigo Manza is built on its new car platform and come in diesel and petrol variants, while the company is also planning to introduce its CNG and LPG models. The car is priced between Rs. 4.80 lakh and Rs. 6.75 lakh.
