U.S. to get first look at Nano next week

Foreign visitors admire Tata Nano cars in New Delhi on Tuesday. The world’s cheapest car, is coming to Detroit and will be on display for the US audience for the first time next week. Photo: PTI

Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car, is coming to Detroit and will be on display for the US audience for the first time next week.

Tata Technologies, part of the Tata Group, would put Nano for display on January 14 during a press meet at the Detroit Science Centre, where Tata’s rivals would display their latest cars at the Detroit auto show.

With regional headquarters in Michigan near here, Tata Technologies would “show the car to highlight its end-to-end vehicle engineering and design capabilities to its auto industry customers.”

“The innovative thinking that brought the Tata Nano to market is symbolic of what Tata Technologies has to offer the automotive industry,” Tata Technologies’ President and COO Warren Harris said.

The announcement came just a day after Tata Group Chief Ratan Tata said at the ongoing Auto Expo in New Delhi that the company will consider launching Nano in the US in the next three years.

He had said there was a market for the Nano not only in developing countries but also in developed countries.

Nano was introduced at the Delhi Auto Show in January 2009 and retails for about USD 2,500 (Rs one lakh) in India.

About the “first north American display of the Nano”, Tata Technologies said that in 1908 the innovation of Ford T changed passenger transportation for millions of families forever, and 100 years later history is repeating itself.

The model, on display in Detroit, is owned by Tata Technologies and is on loan from its Center for Advanced Engineering and Design in Pune, India.

Harris said Tata Technologies was front-and-centre in engineering and developing the Nano and worked closely with Tata Motors and with a significant number of the Nano project suppliers.

Tata Technologies head -- Global Delivery Kevin Fisher said the company contributed to more than 18 patents on the Nano project.

“Our work on the Nano is part of a sweeping wave of change within the automotive industry -- the use of truly global engineering resources,” he added.

Tata Technologies was involved from concept to launch on the Nano project, working on the concept, advanced engineering, body-in-white, interior, and exterior.