Tata's Rs one-lakh car will initially be available only with a petrol engine and have the capacity to accommodate five persons.
MUMBAI: Tata's Rs one-lakh car will initially be available only with a petrol engine and have the capacity to accommodate five persons, Tata Motors managing director Ravi Kant said on Tuesday.
"We may think of introducing a diesel version depending on the market situation," Kant told senior editors at a luncheon meeting.
The car’s looks are "unexpectedly fabulous". The car's space is slightly less than the Tata Indica, he said.
Asserting that Tata Motors is committed to its 2008 deadline to roll out the small car, Kant said it is "certainly not a modification of autorickshaws but "a state-of-the-art car with a swanky look".
According to the company's plans, Tata Motors intends to initially manufacture 2.5 lakh cars and this will be stepped up to a million cars in three to four years, for which a demand would have to be generated.
Asked if he expected more automakers to enter the fray, Kant said his company is not afraid of competition and this is the first time a small car has been indigenously developed in India - a development that was keenly observed the world over.
"It will be an indigenous car," he said, adding the car would be manufactured for the domestic market and exports would be considered at a later stage.
"You will have to wait for some more time but I can assure you that it will be very fuel efficient," Kant said, but declined to divulge what sort of mileage the car would give.
For the first time, the prototype of the car was shown to a standing committee of the West Bengal Assembly and one of the members, on seeing the car, rang up his son, asking him if he should book one car right away, Kant said.
He said that Tata Motors had already ordered machines and finalised 60 per cent of the vendors.
"The company has finalised the architects for designing the project and they are internationally renowned ones," he said.
To meet the 2008 deadline, everything was being done in a parallel manner. "It is a tight timeline but we are still sticking to the mid-2008 deadline," he said.
Though the car would be manufactured from other plants, they would be assembly plants with Singur being the production centre for key components.
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