Super cheap Tata Nano experiences first real teething problems

Back in March, we covered the launch of India’s super cheap Tato Nano city car on this blog and it seems the high profile model has recently been attracting extensive press coverage once more, though this time perhaps for all the wrong reasons.

The stories all relate to quite an unfortunate incident which, embarrassingly for the Tata company who produce the cars, then happened a further two times after the initial occurrence. I’m talking about the fact that the cars have been ‘catching fire’, or spontaneously combusting for want of a better description…

Basically there have been three recent but unconnected instances of Nanos producing smoke and burning from within the steering shaft, sometimes even despite the fact that the car was stationary for some time before the smoke was noticed. Headlines, perhaps unsurprisingly, have been rather dramatic on the topic: lots of ‘blazes’ and ‘infernos’ and, even more predictably, the common cause being linked to the car’s cheap price (just over £1,300).

However, as some astute motoring enthusiasts have aptly pointed out - similar problems were seen in the rather more expensive Lamborghini Gallardo (clutch smoke was reported in a high number of cases), and in such a case we surely cannot link these problems with cost-cutting in production for the purposes of lowering the cost of the finished article (each Gallardo costs around the same price as 200 Nanos).

Ultimately the Tata Nano is a brand new model from a company producing its first vehicles - and it’s totally to be expected that some teething problems should emerge, especially when the company is foraying into new territory by attempting to produce a car that is quite different to almost everything else on the market. Anyone who considers themselves to be a responsible journalist in the field probably owes it to them to report the recent issues in a responsible manner, and avoid quick conclusions before more information is available on the specific fault, and how the company will act to correct it. Either way it will be interesting to observe how the manufacturers respond to this first bit of negative publicity…

Dejan Levi

Dejan Levi, Tata Nano