Money, Cars, Respect: The Nano, Part Deux

Dubbed: The Peoples Car.

I realized I didn't give you the info that really matters, even though most of my readers do not drive on the regular, here are the details that have hella eco-royalty relevance.


The Tata Promotional Video


The Nano is advertised as getting 54 Miles Per Gallon, but realistically gets about 47 MPG. The second generation Nano's are hoping to reach around 80 MPG. The car only holds 3.9 gallons of gas at a time, compared to 10-13 gallons in the average vehicle, so drivers will be visiting the gas station quite frequently. A middle class Indian resident makes about $3-6,000 a year, thus, expanding the potential car market about 65% to about 45 million people. There are about 8 million drivers in India currently. If you have a lead foot, you can push the Nano to reach about 65 miles per hour, but only if you are driving alone and with nothing in the vehicle with you.
Upgrades include: air conditioning and radio options.

The infrastructure in India is not yet fit to sustain its current car community, currently being plagued but ample congestion and air pollution. Once 100,000 of the already promised Nano's hit the road, current congestion and air pollution conditions will fester past its already fatal levels. In a country where sidewalks and roads share the same space, Indian streets are a death trap for those on two feet. In 2007, there were over 90,000 traffic fatalities. That is 14 deaths per 10,000 cars on the road. In industrialized countries, that number is 2:10,000. So the more people that purchase and drive cars, the more likely this fatal number will also rise.


In Bangalore, known as the Silicon Valley of India, a phenomenon known as the "Asian Brown Cloud" hovers above. This Brown Cloud is composed of dangerous pollutants from vehicle exhaust and developing economies from the entire region. In 2006, the state government pollution board rang safety alarms after detecting dangerous levels of smog components such as sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, in places like hospital wards. Yikes.

The Nano is made by the Tata Group, which is the Pacific Gas an Electric of India. This company started making cars in 1945 and recently purchased Land Rover and Jaguar. Other acquisitions include a steel company, Tetely Tea, and hotels in NYC, Boston, and SF. Not to mention, the Tata Consultancy Services which hold down offices in over 54 countries. You have all been warned.

With that, although the Nano meets all of the European safety and emissions standards, the entire world has already met its vehicular threshold, and the introduction of the Nano will exaggerate environmental matters further.

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