India has a lot of poor.
Only 7 in 1000 people own a car and a billion Indians buy as many cars in one year as Americans buy in one month, but this statistic could change, when Tata Motors will unveil their People’s Car to the public today with the promise that it will not be based on the Lada.
Tata Motors’ sturdy truck, buses, dump trucks, ambulances and cement mixers dominate the Indian roadways and the company is betting their $2500 automobile will revolutionize the car market by giving the poor a car to drive much as Henry Ford did for the American driver with his Model T, as higher earners trade thier motor scooters for a car.
The same thing happened in Thailand.
I can remember up-country farmers’ pride in purchasing a 125cc bike and then their neighbors’ kwahn itcha or envy when they upgraded to a pick-up and finally their sense of having arrived after selling the family farm to a real estate speculator to buy a BMW sedan.
Tata Motors figures the trend will repeat itself in India if they cut costs of the car to the bone.
Ratan Tata, longtime chairman of Tata Motors and scion of the nation’s giant Tata Group conglomerate, first mentioned his dream of building a 1-lakh car in 2003. “They are still saying it can’t be done. Everybody is talking of small cars as $5,000 or $7,000. After we get done with it, there will hopefully be a new definition of ‘low-cost.'”
Of course if India goes car-crazy then we can count on massive traffic jams in New Delhi, Bombay, and Calcutta, whose streets are already crammed tight with bullock carts, elephants, wild dogs, and diesel-billowing trucks.
Enter a 33 horsepower car into the global warming fray and we’ll have surfing in Bangkok before the predicted 20 years, but what people want they want and nothing will stop them from buying it, if the price is right.
No one has seen a picture of the new car, but a designer sketched the car’s egg-shaped outline for a Hindustan News reporter and said that the front end will have a storage area the size of an airplane overhead bin and the air intake will be located before the rear tires.
“It is not a car with plastic curtains or no roof–it’s a real car although not as small as the Smart.”
The car is built to sustain a long time at speeds no greater than 70 kilometers or 45 miles per hour. That is not taking into consideration the old Asian joke.
“How many Indians can fit on a bus?”
“One more.”
This answer will hold true for the People’s Car.
Always one more.
Ford Motors seems to be working in the opposite direction by announcing a model car that needs no driver.
No driver?
Then why bother with a car?
For a related article click on this URL
https://www.mangozeen.com/traffic-genius-governor-closes-beach-road.htm