Tata's one lakh car : A no non-sense car?

Tata's one lakh car is closer than ever to be in the production any time now. It's not Suzuki Splash. Nor is it a highly coveted Grande Punto. It will not be racing places making crowd go bonkers. It is going to be, a just another car, with no frills! But one thing for sure that, there wouldn't be any confusion in your mind when you go to buy it.

But when you say it's people's car, will it live up to its name?
To be honest, everybody is curious, no carmaker wants to be caught like a deer in the headlights. I tried to gather some information about this hottest car in the making and here it is:

Let's begin with design and features. Well, to give you a glimpse, it's going to be an Italian job. Now those who know that most of the Tata car designs are sourced from one and only that Italian art gallery. Yes, you guessed it right, it's IDEA again! So the body job is surely going to be exciting. One particular unconventional thing is: this car will have a rear mounted engine and the nose will be used for storage. We haven't seen that on many (any?) cars in India, have we? It will sport a long smiling bumper in the front with no grille. While the rear could look like Beetles of the hippie era. And when, cost cutting is the formula, we will have no luxury of multiple windshield wipers. So don't be surprised to see things like identical rear view mirrors on the both sides, something we have already seen on Renault. So you go inside and the cost cutting will be apparent for sure. Expect it to have a least sparkling dashboard, you've ever seen and expect it to have a least lumbar supporting seats. "But,You have to cut costs on everything—seats, materials, components—the whole package”, says Mr. Tata

So let's not spend time speculating on what we are not sure of, and try to focus on the powertrains and transmissions. As we already know, it is going to be a rear engined car to save transmission costs. Tata motors have reportedly evaluated 660cc gasoline motor. Company is also rumored to be working on a 700cc diesel variant for the same car, with DDIS sourced from Fiat. Bosch is working on an extremely efficient fuel injection system for the car and expect it to return astronomical figures to a litre of adrenaline. Car is almost certainly going to have an automatic transmission. Probably a boon for city commuters. Although, it is not going to be a very sophisticated system like DSG that you find on the likes of Audis or Lamborghinis. However, it will serve the purpose. It will be a variomatic/CVT transmission. Remember India's first automatic scooter, Kinetic Honda? Well, it's going to be that. Just kidding... There is a 21st century version of the same system called, Multitronic. And Tata's car would have a stripped down avatar of that.

Having said all the good things about it, there is a problem with it. And the problem is that it is going to cheap. So cheap that everyone is going grab one of these. So what's the problem? to answer that, you answer one question, Have you driven on roads in Pune or Bangalore? Don't you see that the road infrastructure in these cities is tumbling. It is surely inadequate to handle any further encroachment.

Nevertheless, it will be worth watching how this car does in the market.

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