"A promise is a promise," - People's Car - Tata Nano

Well, Congratulations to Tata Motors to have fulfilled their promise to bring the people's car to market priced just right for the common man in India. There exists a huge potential for such cars especially in smaller cities, towns and larger villages. With India modernizing by leap and bounds, Households do have residual income in form of business profits or second income of spouse or children etc. Its quite disheartening to see people pile up their whole family including small children precariously on dainty two wheelers and be part of the hustling traffic. Even if we take monthly salary of average middle class to be around Rs12 thousand [say high school teachers salary] The on road price of such a car will be less than a year salary. The car loan can be worked out say @ 4thousand per month for 3years or so, keeping in mind one will put some 25 thousand as down payment. This is well within budget of people who would have otherwise bought likely two two-wheelers for the family to move about.
I understand that 1lakh rupees ($2500) dealer price will transcribe to about 1.15 lakh ( <$3000) on road which will include VAT, transport, registration, insurance etc.
The car will have a 624-cc petrol engine generating 33 bhp of power. It will sport a 30-litre fuel tank and 4-speed manual gearshift. The car will come with air conditioning, but will have no power steering. It will have front disk and rear drum brakes. The company claims mileage of 23 km per litre. The car conforms to the prevalent Bharat Stage 3 (BS III) emission norms, and will meet the Euro 4 standards. The car is eight per cent shorter than Maruti 800 on bumper to bumper length, but is 21 per cent more spacious, claimed Tata. In the photograph it does look a bit more spacious due to its ambassador type top curve and front. I actually like the looks of the car, reminisces of old amby and VW beetle etc. I think its cute especially in yellow!
I would also remark on Ratan Tata's statement ""A promise is a promise," Well, He, justify-ably, had all the reasons to NOT keep the price at a lakh but maybe a little bit more to about a lakh twenty five, and still make the world cheapest car! It does seem that Tata would be really chipping on their profits to keep the price this low, even if they would not be making losses. I appreciate this kind of integrity in corporate world where it is not even seen commonly in personal space!