Motor Briefs
End of the road for Tata Nano
Tata is getting ready to pull the plug on its ill-fated Nano
It was billed as the world's cheapest car and shaped like a jelly bean, but after a bumpy 10-year ride India's Tata Nano is nearing the end of the road. Tata Motors, India's top car maker, says that it could stop manufacturing and selling the vehicle from April 2020 due to new safety and emissions rules that would require major investment. "We may not invest in upgrading all the products and Nano is one of them," Mayank Pareek, president of passenger vehicles at Tata, told reporters in Hyderabad. Tata launched the Nano, a compact four or five-door hatchback, with great fanfare in 2009 when its first edition went on the market for around $2,200 (R29,500). It was the brainchild of the former boss of the tea-to-steel Tata Group conglomerate Ratan Tata, who wanted a budget car for the masses. Tata, now 81, was sure that aspirational lower-class Indian families would trade in their two-wheel motorcycles for the prestige, and comfort, of owning a car. It quickly became known around the gl...
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