Cheapest car tag hit Tata Nano: Creator

NEW DELHI: Girish Wagh, the man behind Tata Motors' much-touted budget car Nano, has blamed "external factors" for the poor run of the vehicle, while also linking the failure to the last-minute withdrawal of the factory from Singur in West Bengal that led to delays in deliveries.

Wagh, the main architect of Nano, also feels that the tag of "cheapest car in the world" badly hit the chances of the model, which actually was meant to be a low-cost innovation. "People started looking at Nano not as a low-cost innovation, but as a cheap car. This, among other factors, also hurt the chances."

Elaborating on what he called the "external factors" that led to the initial hiccups with the Nano, including thermal or fire incidents, Wagh told TOI that the company had found "foreign objects in the exhaust system of the car". Also, he said that connections taken from the electrical system of the car were not made in the best possible manner.

Tata Motors