Problems with Tata's Nano

Billigheimer in flames


Small, cheap, revolutionary - and quite flammable: burn regularly to India's Tata Nano from roads. None of the small car was older than a year, which had run at least more than 250 kilometers. Manufacturer Tata Motors thinks this is a coincidence.

He has even made it to the stage of the Saarbrücken State Theater. To the sounds of Franz Schubert and Karl Aage Rasmussen became India's auto-icon, the Tata Nano, on Saturday for the opera star in the performance of the Indian epic "Sakuntala". The theater people and their sponsor, the German distributor Tata Green Rent were glad: your copy of the cheapest cars in the world series behaved discreetly.

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So much happiness, not all Nano owners: burn regularly in India from Nanos. Often they had not even traveled 500 kilometers, some people even only a hundred kilometers. Only last Thursday, another copy was due - embarrassingly on the way from the factory in the western Indian Sanand to the car dealer. "I saw smoke from the rear view mirrors are held - and a few minutes later the car was in flames," Rajubhai Thakore reports from the car carrier Cargo Motors.

A few days earlier, a software engineer in Bombay had run into danger when his Nano caught fire at a speed of 40. The man had just received the car at the dealer, and led him from his family pride. Only by luck of the occupants were in time out of their car. Suspected cause: a short circuit in the electrical system. So now five Nanos have been destroyed by fire.

"There are no problems with the vehicles'

The exact causes are still unknown. However, Tata Motors closed a systemic problem, such a design flaw, categorically: "There is no problem with the technical design. The car has all the international certificates received," tells Tata spokesman Debasis Ray. "Meanwhile, more than 30,000 Nanos in India are delivered, some of them almost a year old. There are no problems with the vehicles." A recall was unnecessary.

Intern Tata Motors seems to be not quite so sure of his cause. A company's own commission of inquiry to find out the causes of the fires. For her part, the technical father of Nanos, Girish Wagh. He runs from the beginning to the Nano project and has the little 3.1-meter-long mini-cars with global suppliers developed - among them German corporations like Bosch, ZF Friedrichshafen or Conti and Freudenberg. It does not take part in the investigation: "We are watching the events are not, but part of the Commission," a Bosch spokesman in India said on request. Rental car is very important.

Nevertheless: In the past year three partially burned Nanos had led to changes. After an alleged error in the steering wheel and the fuse box changed the supplier and let the Tata Nano in the workshops examined as a precaution.

followed by bad luck

The Nano has since its launch at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2008 caused an international sensation. With an official price of 100,000 rupees, about 1,700 euros, for the base model of Nano is the cheapest production car in the world. It should appeal to motorcyclists and lower income customers in the hinterland of India. Maybe you rental car .


Where it offers a lot: Despite its compact size is significantly larger than the interior of vehicles is the next class. Of just 623 cubic centimeter engine with 33 HP offers decent performance and consumes less than five liters of gasoline per 100 kilometers. The export of a modified version to Europe and the U.S. is planned for 2011.

Tata Nano is when, pursued by bad luck. , We saw that for the equivalent of about $ 300 million in West Bengal to set up Nano plant boondoggle. Militant protests by farmers who complained of too low prices for land expropriation, forced the carmaker in 2008 to move to Gujarat.

Of these companies, neither fund nor schedule have been recovered. A total of 200,000 customers so far have ordered a Nano. New orders, the Group takes no longer present to - it lacks the manufacturing capacity. By the end of first half to be delivered. The new plant in Gujarat will only start operating next month.

Note: The capacity of the Tata Nano is 623 cubic inches, not 623 cubic meters