Is it the end of the road for Tata Nano, the Rs 1 lakh wonder that stunned many advanced countries when it was first launched? Tata Motors has reportedly not produced even a single vehicle of the Nano during this entire calendar year and sold just one car in this period.
That would be a sad end to a project that was the brainchild of Ratan Tata, the then Chairman of the Tata Group. The story goes that he once saw a family riding a two-wheeler and getting drenched in the rain and he resolved to himself that he would make a car that was priced a little more than a motorcycle. However, things have not gone as planned.
The Nano model would have had to be scrapped, in any case, as it is not viable to make the technical changes required to comply with the BS-VI emission norms. There is no official word on the discontinuation of the model. There are however reports that such a decision may be arrived at somewhere in the next year, 2020.
“Decisions on product life cycle is a holistic view taken after considering the market developments, regulations and emerging competitive landscape. Any such decisions are announced as and when it's taken,” the company reportedly said in a regulatory filing.
Between January-September 2018, Tata Motors produced a total of 297 units and sold 299 units of the Nano in the domestic market. In September this year, the company said that there was no production or sales of Nano, making it the ninth consecutive month that Nano was not produced.
In terms of sales, the company last sold a Nano in February this year and has not sold any cars post that.
After facing some technical issues, which got it poor reputation, the car was making losses for Tata Motors and was acknowledged as such by the ex-Chairman Cyrus Mistry. Post the fallout between him and the company, in one of his letters, Mistry had claimed that Tata Motors did not stop producing the car due to emotional reasons.