Tata Motors unleashes Nano power

Tata Motors announced the commercial launch of the Tata Nano, keenly awaited across India since its unveiling on January 10, 2008. The Tata Nano is BS-III* compliant and comes with an all-new 2-cylinder aluminium MPFI 624 cc petrol engine mated to a four-speed gear box and will be available in three variants. The cars will be on display across the country at Tata Motors Passenger Car dealerships and other select authorised outlets from April 1st. "It is to the credit of the team at Tata Motors that a car once thought impossible by the world is now a reality. I hope it will provide safe, affordable, four-wheel transportation to families who till now have not been able to own a car. We are delighted in presenting the Tata Nano to India and the world," Tata group chairman Ratan Tata said. The Tata Nano is currently being manufactured at the company’s Pantnagar plant in Uttarakhand in limited numbers. The new dedicated plant, at Sanand in Gujarat, will be ready in 2010 with an annualised capacity of 350,000 cars.

In view of the expected significant demand and limited production capacity initially until the Sanand plant is fully ramped up to capacity, the Tata Nano will be available through a booking mode. Tata Motors has entered into an exclusive agreement with the State Bank of India (SBI) to manage the booking process. The sale of application forms and acceptance of booking will start from April 9th till the end of day April 25th. The application forms will be available at a price of Rs.300, with a range of offers from select associate Tata group companies. The application forms will be available at over 30,000 locations in about 1,000 cities through Tata Motors Passenger Car dealerships, SBI and its branches, its subsidiaries and associates, other preferred financiers, and outlets of Westside, Croma, ‘World of Titan’ and Tata Indicom exclusive stores. After collecting the forms, customers have two options. They can either pay the entire booking amount themselves or seek financing of the booking amount.