‘Cheapest car’ tag for Nano a mistake: Ratan Tata

When Ratan Tata launched the Nano in 2009, it was pitched as the people's car, with a very affordable price tag advertised of Rs1 lakh.

However, the project did not quite measure up to expectations, due to it being labelled as 'cheapest', as Tata admitted yesterday.

Tata told a news channel that the Nano came to be termed by the public and the company as the cheapest car, though not by him, while marketing, and he thought that was unfortunate.

According to Tata, the company might consider relaunching the Nano in a new avatar in another country and bring it back to India for a fresh start with a new image.

Tata said, it might be that the car got launched in another country like Indonesia, where it did not carry the stigma os being billed the 'cheapest, and the car with a new image was brought back to India.

Or it might come back as a changed product that got marketed in Europe. He added, there was a lot of interest in Nano outside India.

The sales of Nano have been falling even as the company attempted to reposition it. In the April-October period, its sales were down 71.7 per cent to 12,3222 units from 43,627 units in the year ago period.    

From its peak sales of 10,000 in April 2012, Nano sales had fallen to less than 2,500 units a month in India despite Tata Motors re-launching the marketing campaign for the model, targeting it at the youth, with added features.