Tata Motors sell 3,000 GenX Nanos in one month

GenX Nano, the new avatar of Tata Motors’ Nano, has travelled quite a distance in a month of its launch. The company has delivered 1,000 cars to buyers and is in the process of delivering another 2,000 units. The car was launched on May 19. The response compares favourably with an average monthly sale of 1,400 cars that the previous version clocked last year. The production of the earlier version (barring the CNG model) has been discontinued.

Priced at Rs 1.99 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi) for the manual transmission (MT) version and Rs 2.69 lakh for the automated manual transmission (AMT) version, the GenX Nano is still the most affordable passenger car available in the country. The top-end version of the new MT car is about Rs 5,000 more than the earlier top-end MT vehicle, while the top-end AMT model costs Rs 40,000 more.

Interestingly, the bulk of the buyers are queuing up for the AMT version that is priced in a range of Rs 2.69 lakh to Rs 2.89 lakh and not for the Rs 1.99-lakh entry-level MT model. Dealers said there is a waiting period of six weeks for the AMT version and two weeks for the MT car. The AMT waiting period is primarily due to a delay in the supply of AMT kits that get imported. An official with a Pune-based Tata Motors dealership said buyers prefer to buy the top-end AMT version since there is a difference of only Rs 20,000 between the top end and the next-available AMT model.

“Based on our total bookings, 70 per cent of the GenX Nanos booked are the AMT version. AMT as a technology gives the convenience of clutch-free driving, automated gear shifting, and the freedom to choose a drive mode, with good fuel economy at an affordable price,” said Mayank Pareek, president of Tata Motors’ passenger vehicle business unit.

The new model is being positioned as a smart city car. The GenX Nano competes with entry-level cars such as Maruti Suzuki’s Alto and Hyundai’s Eon. “We have a very even spread across the country for Nano sales, especially in top metro cities, Kerala and the north-east,” Pareek said.

An executive with a Delhi-based dealer said the firm had sold about 30 GenX Nanos in the first month of the launch against an average of 10 cars for the previous model. He added the dealership had about a hundred visitors every week who wanted to explore the AMT version.

The previous Nano, which had a peak monthly sale of 10,389 units in October 2011, had been struggling to grow volumes in recent times. The company sold 16,901 units in the year ended March.

The company is hopeful the GenX Nano will further boost the domestic passenger vehicle sales, which grew 21 per cent in May. Volumes could go up with the addition of 200 dealerships this year to the current 450 and the arrival of the festive season.