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Catch Me On ‘Have Your Say’ (BBC World Service) Tonight

TATA Presents
It looks like the TATA Nano (the name of TATA’s one lakh car) is making news all over the world. Some of the news websites I was reading declare that this is the world’s cheapest car (really?) and that’s not to be taken lightly.

Some photos of the car:

It doesn’t look like the horribly dated boxy looking Maruthi 800 and that alone gets the Nano points for design. However the wheels are really small and make it look odd. Anyway, design is the last thing people would be looking for in the cheapest car available.

Some technical details here. More pictures including interiors here.

BBC Takes An Interest
Someone from the BBC must have read my post about this since I was emailed by Peter Van Dyk inviting me to participate in Have Your Say, a radio show on BBC World Service from 1.30 PM to 00.30 AM tonight. I replied to the email telling him that I would like to participate and Peter gave me details about the show. I can tell the presenter my views when invited to do so and listen to the entire show. I’ve also been linked to on their blog here. This is possibly better than the time I was mentioned in the Adyar Times after writing to them about the traffic problems in Adyar.

The Issues
People all over the world are taking about the environmental impacts of this car. I see a pattern in the comments. People from developed countries are issuing warnings about the environmental issues we face and the Indians divided between complaining about traffic issues and welcoming the car. I completely agree with this comment by Vikram:

OMG India develops a $2500 car and it is an environment disaster; millions of gas guzzling SUV’s are sold every year in the west and that is kosher? Fix your environment record first before accusing someone else.

I’ve written down some of the things I am going to say on the show:

I’m not blaming TATA for making a cheap car. It’s not their fault. They are simply catering to the market. If they didn’t, some other company would. The side effects of more cars on the road is what we should be worrying about instead of trying to blame TATA. It is not their fault that cities are overpopulated and it is not their fault that we lack infrastructure to support even the existing vehicular traffic.

What would you have TATA do? Artificially inflate the price of this car to make it less accessible? Sell the cars only to families in lower income segments? Stop the production and sale of the car altogether?

Families of four traveling on a single motorbike is a common sight in our country. (It looks like TATA used this idea in their presentation at the auto show.) Would you deny them the safety and comfort of a car? It’s not as if the 1 lakh car pollutes any more than the other cars. (It meets all safety and emission guidelines in India.) The exact problem we are addressing here is end result of many more cars on Indian roads as a side effect of the introduction of a cheap car. We will have the same problem if India’s economy suddenly surged ahead so that many more people are able to afford the currently available cars. So why don’t we try to suppress the sale of all cars instead of targeting the cheapest one? In fact, the 1 lakh car is cheaper to produce and has better mileage so shouldn’t we all be switching to this car? It would save fuel throughout the country with its superior mileage.

You can listen to Have Your Say live here and it will be available for download for a week from today here.