Sunday, March 22, 2009

The Tato Nano

India's ultracheap car arrives with load of uncertainties

At 3.1 meters long, or about 10 feet, and 1.5 meters wide, the four-seater Nano's fuel efficiency is 5 liters per 100 kilometers, or 47 miles per gallon, and it has lower emissions than most two-wheelers in India, Tata says.

Only 47 miles to the gallon? We better find more oil.

If you hit a deer with the Nano, joked one commentator on the site, "you have to ride the deer to work."

Hahaha!

The fact that the Nano is here at all, though, proves the Big Three U.S. automakers wrong, Mr. Bhattacharya said. When he made presentations on the Nano to Western car manufacturers a few years ago, "they would all laugh and say that it couldn't be done," he recalled.

It seems my laughter over the deer joke was short-lived. Sigh.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think the nano's a good idea. but the bads might outweigh the goodss

Stagflationary Mark said...

Anonymous,

Than Nano is just another reminder that other countries can make stuff cheaper than we can make it.

The thought that we actually laughed at them under the belief that they couldn't do just adds insult to future injury.

We keep using the same solution over and over again. If someone makes it cheaper, then we let them. At some point, we won't make anything. Sigh.

Stagflationary Mark said...

Oops.

Lot's of typos in that. Sorry. In my defense, I'm under the influence of NyQuil. I have a head cold. D'oh!

Stagflationary Mark said...

Anonymous,

First, YOU'RE the idiot.

That's what you should have said. Your is not the same as you are.

Second, there's NO such thing as deers. The plural of deer is deer.

Third, "They USA version..." doesn't even make sense.

And lastly, your logic escapes me. At what point did I ever suggest that "India's ultracheap car" was intended for the USA? How did you possibly jump to that conclusion? My only point was that if a billion people in India drive ultracheap cars getting just 47 mpg the planet won't have enough oil.

But hey, thanks for being an anonymous arrogant jerk for immediately calling me an idiot. You have renewed my belief that our country is heading down the toilet.