Karnataka chief minister told reporters that Karnatala would be glad to have the Tatas in the state following a meeting with Tata Motors Managing Director G Ravikanth in Bangalore on Thursday. Tata Motors has a manufacturing facility at Dharwad in the north Karnataka region, where it produces buses and tractors.
The company plans test production of 50-60 cars per day from January.
Tata Motors, however, will not be able to meet this small demand and keep the Nano alive from October next year, when safety regulations for existing car models kick in.
Tata Motors' Nano, the small car seen as a symbol of India's expertise in frugal engineering, is likely to be launched on March 3. Billed as the world's cheapest, the small car's first recipients may be celebrities, including political leaders, social workers, sports stars and film stars.
Five small cars in the Indian market failed in the first-ever independent crash tests.
The company has delivered 1,000 cars to buyers and is in the process of delivering another 2,000 units.
India, a booming market for passenger cars, manufactures 4 of the world's cheapest cars.
The company has been in discussions with vendors who are moving from Singur to Sanand to support them with mutually acceptable terms, which will be implemented.
The company had got 100,000 bookings in the first phase.
There have been reports of fire breaking out in Nano near the steering column of the car from three different places -- Ahmedabad, Lucknow and Delhi.
Official sources said that top company officials recently met Uttarakhand Chief Minister BC Khanduri and demanded 35 acres of additional land for expanding the facility. Earlier, the company had sought 55 acres of land at Pantnagar for housing purpose. The government is yet to take a decision in this regard.
Company says that this is a long-term plan as it continues to evaluate options.
Maruti is working very hard to tap the entry level segment and it might reduce some features from the original model available in Japan.
What is your take on small cars? Do you think the hype about Ratan Tata's 1-lakh (Rs 100,000-) wonder is way too much?
Sanand produced only 515 Nanos in January, and sold even less, just around 391 units.
Tata Motors has set up a separate team at its plant in Pune to examine ways to cut manufacturing costs on the Nano, the small car scheduled for an October launch, to bring the ex-showroom price down to the psychological Rs 1 lakh mark, managing director Ravi Kant said.
In the biggest-ever replacement exercise in Indian automobile history, Tata Motors has asked an estimated 1.40 lakh (140,000) Nano owners to bring back their cars for change of the starter motor free-of-cost.
Big Bazaar stores have sold 900 Nano cars since February, when Tata Motors made the arrangement.
Ratan Tata said he continued to feel the need to support young entrepreneurs who were keen to unleash the Indian tiger.
Thirteen years after their small car project was forced out of West Bengal following the anti-land acquisition movement in Singur, Industry and IT Minister Partha Chatterjee has said talks are on with the Tatas for big-ticket investments in the state. Underscoring job creation as the TMC government's top priority, Chatterjee also said incentives to companies will depend on ability to generate employment. He said the Mamata Banerjee dispensation wants two large manufacturing units to be set up by any prominent industrial house at the earliest. "We never had any enmity with the Tatas, neither we fought against them. "They are one of the most respected and biggest business houses of this country and also abroad. "You can't blame the Tatas (for the Singur fiasco).
An exclusive excerpt from The Tatas: How A Family Built A Business And A Nation.
Within 15 days of opening the registration process for Nano, its Rs 1 lakh car, Tata Motors has sold nearly 5,00,000 application forms, raking in Rs 15 crore (at Rs 300 each). Distributors associated with the Nano bookings said most of the forms were likely to translate into bookings.
With an industry at the abandoned site of Tata's Nano car project at Singur yet to come up, most of the landowners who had willingly parted with their fields are now back to what they had been doing - cultivation.
Now that the Left Front has cowed down to Mamata Banerjee's persistent pressure, it sends out a loud signal to their detractors -- unless you create nuisance in this state, you won't be heard.
'I think some of us, like Mukesh Ambani, myself and those of us who head industrial units, ought to really focus on what we can really do to make the world a safer place, maybe 50 or 100 years from now.' 'For instance, how can we deal with climate change and global warming, right now?' 'The effects of it may not be felt now; in fact, we may pay a price for it today, but it will help the generations to follow.'
"Nano is like an open canvas for us. We have the option of positioning it on the lines of the (Volkswagen) Beetle or the (BMW) Mini."
"Tata Motors has given us a commitment that it will set up a permanent satellite facility at Pantnagar for producing Nanos," said Chief Secretary Indu Kumar Pande. From the Pantnagar industrial unit, from where the company would launch its first car, Tata Motors is planning to produce a total of 50,000 units per year. Besides, it has agreed to distribute all its Nano cars from Pantnagar through its new subsidiary, Tata Motors Distribution Co Ltd.
If Cyrus's protestations of having no knowledge of his imminent dismissal are to be taken at face value, he was extraordinarily naive and insulated from the ground reality. There were enough straws in the wind to suggest that his relations with Ratan were fast deteriorating to a point of no return.
Noting that the company's Nano plant in Singur, West Bengal, was expected to come into operation in the last quarter of 2008, Ratan Tata, in a letter to shareholders in the annual report for 2007-08, said that manufacturing facilities would be expanded to meet domestic and global demand in the future. "New variants of the Nano are also currently under development to meet the new environmental and fuel price challenges".
Different circuits have been designed, depending on the tourists' preference, connecting the Rann Utsav at Kutch with the ports at Mundra and Kandla.
Some of the most popular small cars sold in India, including Maruti Alto 800, Tata Nano, Ford Figo, Hyundai i10 and Volkswagen Polo, have failed crash tests showing high risk of life-threatening injuries in road accidents, according to Global NCAP.
Tata Motors says the car which faced short circuiting has been repaired and handed back to the owner in Ahmedabad.
The Nano is developed to meet all the safety features that are applicable for passenger cars in India -- which is not saying much. What we like is the fact that the car will be able to meet the upcoming safety norms too. Current norms stipulate that the cars sold in India should meet norms set for full frontal crash, head impact on steering wheel, body block impact on steering system and seat belt anchorage strength, etc.
Last year, HPL posted losses of around Rs 960 crore (Rs 9.6 billion) on revenues of Rs 8,662 crore (Rs 86.62 billion).
The Nano car loan is available for a maximum tenure of 7 years at an interest rate that ranges between 11.75 per cent and 12 per cent p.a.
The Ambassador and Nano plants are in the same district. Now to get the Bajaj Lite
Like many other low-unit value, fast-moving consumer goods, the Nano can be expected to alter the dynamics of its market like nothing before.
Tata's small car Nano may not be able to enter Europe due to stringent safety and emission norms, leading German luxury carmaker Audi said joining the list of auto players, who are sceptical about the prospects of the world's cheapest car.
The bookings for Rs 1 lakh Nano car by the Tata Motors are pouring in from all parts of the country as the sole booking agent SBI said it has distributed lakhs of applications for the world's cheapest car.
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