Tatas' Rs 1 lakh car to sport rear engine

Tatas' Rs 1 lakh car to sport rear engine
1 Oct, 2007, 0007 hrs IST,Krishna Kant, Lijee Philip & Gouri Agtey Athale, TNN

MUMBAI/PUNE: Many may find it difficult to digest that Ratan Tata’s billion-dollar empire is getting its biggest buzz from something as mundane as the Rs 1-lakh car. However, for Mr Tata, the last few years have been spent personally overseeing the project which will turn the Rs 1-lakh car dream into a reality.

It’s a project that the entire auto world — from Detroit to Japan — is watching keenly, for it could change the dynamics of the global car market. Not much has been forthcoming from the Tatas so far, and the details of the project are a closely-guarded secret. Every time the management of Tata Motors has been asked about the car, all it has said is ‘wait and watch’.

Now, for the first time, ET has unearthed details that show there are many surprises in store beside the price when it comes to Tata’s small car package.

If you are dying to get your hands on the cheapest four-wheels in India (possibly globally), then be ready to change the way you drive in city traffic and load up the luggage while going on weekend getaways.

For starters, the base model of the car will be fitted with variomatic gears — which means it will be gearless for all practical purposes — instead of the standard manual gears on conventional cars. This is a radical departure, given that typically in India auto-transmission variants are priced higher than manual variants.

More surprisingly, the engine will be mounted in the rear of the car, pushing the luggage compartment or dickey to the front — a trend that is common in the international markets. The changes apparently have been made to improve its fuel efficiency and ensure that the price tag is kept to a lakh.

The higher-end version will feature manual gears and frills such as air-conditioning, power windows and power steering, among others. Most component manufacturers working on the car seem to believe that the basic version would find acceptability. “It is for price-conscious consumers and they won’t mind little less functionality as long as the price is okay,” said a component manufacturer working on the small car.

Given the stakes and the fact that this is a project which is being personally overseen by Mr Tata, full details are hard to come by with suppliers preferring to keep mum. “It’s a Ratan Tata project and a top priority for the company. Around 55 prototypes are already being tested in varied conditions around the country and the first car will arrive in the show-rooms by September next year,” says one of their vendors.

MICO, Robert Bosch Indian subsidiary, is learnt to be developing a fuel-injection system for the small car from scratch, though the company is not willing to give any details on this. Brakes India and Bosch Chassis systems are supplying low-cost braking systems.

Kinetic Engineering, which had hoped to launch a small car of its own, is supplying variomatic gears while the steering system is being manufactured by Sona Koyo Steering Systems. The challenge for vendors is to meet Tata Motor’s expectations without sacrificing their financial interest. “Developing components for small car has been a huge challenge. Most of us have taken a cut in margins, hoping the volume will more than compensate for it,” says one engine component vendor.

Many in the industry are wondering how the car is likely to balance the trade-off between price and performance and whether engine power and speed are likely to be much below the current norm. “It will be a light-weight vehicle with a frugal engine.

In terms of fuel-efficiency, the car has been benchmarked with upper-end motorcycles,” says one of their vendors working on the small car. There are many ways to improve fuel efficiency — lower the vehicle weight, under-power the engine, improve the fuel combustion or reduce the wastage of power during transmission. Tata engineers and their vendors are all understood to be working towards this.

Weight reduction has been achieved by using low-gauge steel for body panels, while rear mounted engine will reduce the wastage of power during transmission. Variomatic gears also help improve fuel mileage by increasing the torque output. “Besides improving the fuel-mileage, lighter vehicle allows Tata Motors to use simple and low-cost components without sacrificing performance or safety,” says another vendor. With new safety regulations coming into place, the car is expected to meet crash test requirements too.

Though full details are not available, industry sources say Tatas may ramp up the production to nearly half a million units a year within three-four years of its commercial launch. “If they achieve that, most of the vendors will mint money even at low margins,” says a senior official in one of their component suppliers.