NA To NANO

So it is official now Nano is not doing well, the car that was supposed to launch a million middle class Indians on the pot holed roads of India is refusing to move from the show rooms. The moon craters transferred to Indian roads are anxiously waiting to gobble the pint sized car but are going hungry just like Anna and company. So what went wrong? I am not sure, as when I read about luxury cars like BMW, VW, Audi and the Mercedes Benz and their sales figures in India I learn that they all have upped their targets to sell in India and are confident to break records for previous years?

Some thing is not right over here, all bike companies are doing record sales and not only the 50-70 thousand range motorcycles are doing good but even Harley Davidson bikes are breaking all records in this country.

Now wait a minute was Nano not suppose to convert the two wheeler buyers to the car category? If I am not wrong that is how Mr. Tata’s dream project took shape a family of 4 riding on a bike dangerously walks into the Nano showroom and buys the car that is only a little more costly than a bike and is easily available on EMIs.

So why are the bike owners not forming a line in front of Nano showrooms? I checked the car out in the showroom with a totally clinical approach and it seems to be a decent car with good amount of bang for the buck. I eaves dropped on the conversation of some of the customers in the showroom and this is what I overheard:

“Dekho jee main sastee car nahin loongee."


While it is not fair to form an opininion based on one stray comment I still think this one line summarizes in my opinion the perception about Nano that it is a cheap car and only for the masses. Therein lies the problem, a car has been an aspiration for generation of Indians and the 800 delivered that dream. Now the moment you sell a car as cheap it does not fulfill that screaming announcement of arriving in life. The Nano some how does not gives a feeling of arriving in life, that triumph of being better that the Janis next door.

Or the other thing could be that it is an idea ahead of its time and the biker boys are yet to mature into men who care for the safety of family and the sales will pick up in next few years. Remember Indica? If was a non starter before it became as ubiquitous as our mrootee.

On the other hand if you go by logic of my friend Rupom Bagchee they should simply change the name of the car to HanYes in place of Nano