Would you drive my Mini Cat?

I initially planned a post on, the barely discussed, Tata Nano. Unfortunately or fortunately I hit my head, after running at full speed, into the corner of a bookshelf and forgot all about writing a crappy ‘oh-but-what-about-mata-earth?’ piece.

So one week later and with a slinking yet itching egg-sized bump on my head I’m going to continue and with a more positive tone because my head can’t handle any divine interventions anymore.

Tata Nano (Really if you haven’t heard about it: it must be a big big rock. Here a link to the official website (it’s cute innit?)) the world’s cheapest car, a kept promise, revolutionary, a mile stone in history? Well, it’s undoubtedly one of the most aggressively positive, marketing strategies of the year and with all the reactions on the web I would not be too surprised if the Nano car would indeed make a difference. Ten times saying is believing and believe is what this car is all about.

On one side we have the cynics, the green fundamentalists, anti-globalist and on the other side the post-colonial population, the optimists and the nationalists. Some of their possible arguments:

• Any multinational would drool when envisioning a market of millions of potentially buyers
• Driving in Delhi in an all weather car with no air conditioning really is the most sadomasochistic thing to do
• Millions of Indians in a car? that’s depriving ‘the environment friendly rest of the world’ of oxygen.
• The Smart Car was a dumb idea, the Nano will be a mega disaster
• Also sprach capitalism
• Millions of Indians in a car? that’s genocide
• Indian roads can’t handle today’s traffic let alone millions of extra Nano car’s
• First they take your jobs, then your wives and then your cars

~

• Chak de India
• Also Sprach the future
• The roads nor the current state of India’s traffic life are Tata’s responsibility.
• Driving a new car, instead of an occasion is always a cleaner and safer option.
• Really as funny as it looks the motor-families are better of inside a vehicle.
• More demand, more productivity, more profit, more investments, more jobs more economic health.  Stockmarket meltdown today? Buy, buy, buy it’s the right time!
• So basically you are saying that for the sake of nature Indians should not drive a small car while it’s ok for you to drive a big polluting vehicle? Don’t think so.
• Chill, India still has a large population that cannot even afford a proper meal so not every single soul on the subcontinent will actually drive the new vehicle.
• I really don’t have a good argument but eh… I’ll take three please. Tata rules you know!

Personally I think that the Nano came too late. Meaning that the industrialisation of India started too late and that a car like the Nano  will have a hard time on the global market. The real challenge/potential lies in Friedman’s E2k, the green market. In his article on the race towards E2k  Friedman ends with the lines:

So, mom, dad, tell your kids: if they’re looking for a good stable-growth career — green consultants, green designers, green builders are all going to be in huge demand. And if they can speak a little Hindi — all the better.

Sooner or later it’s going to be very hard to have enough energy supplies to keep up with the rapid economic growths and the production of millions and millions of  polluting little Nano’s.  Questions arose after the Nano launch of ‘why oh why could Tata not have made a cheap green car? He did. Well, in cooperation with MDI that is. Tata invested 20 million Euro in what is  called the Mini Cat. The Mini Cat will cost around $7000 and is most likely  the first air car (Something with Compresssed Air Technology ) to hit the markets in 2008.

Hopefully it will shut up a few of those green fundies. I really love the idea of a car that runs on air and even more so I would love, love, love to have my own CAT mobile. It’s a sassy looking thing. A Nano Cat? Meow!

Sigh… the Nano, the mini Cat why did I wrote this post again?

I don’t even have my drivers license…