Brad's Tiny World

Where’s Our Nano

Posted on 05. Mar, 2009 by Brad in Economy | Twitter: @bradhart |

People drive recklessly because they feel their car is safe. Would you pay more attention if your car was less safe?

When Americans scream, “Where’s our Nano?” we are not searching for our newest offering from Apple.  The Tata Nano is the Indian designed micro car selling for $2500.  it amounts to little more than an enclosed motorcycle without a lot of safety features, but it does have its good points.

The biggest point in its favor is the price.  At $2500 it is affordable to many Indian families.  While I have no doubt the US version, which there won’t be would be $3500 to $4500 that is still affordable for most people.  However with banks refusing to make ridiculously small car loans most of the time there would have to be other financing available.  The sort of traditional bank thinking that says there isn’t enough profit margin is what got us into a lot of this mess in the first place so maybe a little government intervention would be necessary.

The second big point about why we aren’t getting the Nano is none of the other automakers nor oil companies want us to have cheap fuel efficient cars.  At an estimated 47 mpg city and a top speed of 75 mph this little car has the mileage people want and more speed than most drivers will ever need it for.  This isn’t a very good highway car, that is for certain. I don’t want to have a wreck on the highway in something like this, which leads me to the next reason we will never get a Nano.

Safety is too big of an issue for Americans.  There are no rear seatbelts, airbags or ABS in a Nano.  Those issues could be remedied in an American version to a point.  The big issue is collision safety.  Rather than saying this isn’t meant for highway driving, deep snow, slick ice, or being irresponsible we are likely to let some mommy group who still think SUV are the best way to go because you can run over the other guy tell the engineers how our Nano should be built.  When that committee is done designing the car it will two tons and get three gallons to the mile only carrying the driver.

So what should our Nano have?  The seatbelts in the rear are a must.  The motor must be capable of running e85 ethanol at the very least.  The issue with older cars was always the gaskets, so that could be fixed from the start.  A small diesel engine could also be an option.  An automatic transmission is also a must, too few Americans can drive a stick shift.  It would need to be capable of seating a 6’4” driver and passenger in the front, which would cover 95% of people in country.

In the end we have the know how and the facilities, not to mention the need for an inexpensive car.  In my opinion we should be pushing for government subsidies to get a number of small manufacturers making cars just like this.  We would put people back to work, fill a market niche and move towards saving the environment.

Stumble! for WP

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