f13.net

Its a $2,500 car.
50 Mpg.


I want one.

Same company thats trying to buy Land rover and Jaguar.

Linky (http://www.tatamotors.com/our_world/press_releases.php?ID=340&action=Pull)

Why do "efficient" and "friendly" cars have to be so fucking ugly.

HINT: PEOPLE DON'T BUY THE PRIUS FOR LOOKS.

Deathtrap.

You can Trick it out. (http://www.tatapeoplescar.com/tatamotors/car/base.html)

Im sure the after market will offer even more options.

Deathtrap? Apparently it meets or exceeds a bunch of county's safety standards. I am trying to find out info about its safety features in relation to US standards.

That thing is great if the only thing you may get hit by is a bike rider or a dog. I'm pretty sure a decent sized buck would take that car out, and live.

the standards are.

It's a slow as fuck car that will be a nuisance on the road. It's a death trap no matter what standards it meets.

Not exactly meant for US highways.

Also, I read there is an outcry because it will jack up pollution and congestion because so many people will be able to afford them in places like India or China.

There's only one thing certain about that car. You will NOT be getting laid because you are driving it. As a matter of fact, you may not get laid if you stand in the same parking lot as it.

No power steering or air conditioning, with a top speed of 65 mph.


It's either the worlds cheapest car, or the worlds most expensive power wheel. 

If you need a car to get laid, you probably deserve what you get.

Tata is also making the CityCat (http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/27/indian-air-powered-city-cat-car-prepares-for-production-run/) series, cars that run on - I kid you not - compressed air. As soon as they're available in the States I'll probably pick one up, maybe two. Since the wife and I both work in the same town we live, the top speed isn't an issue. Either those or pure electric cars. We'll decide when it comes time.

And yes, since I have a personality and a dick bigger than a breakfast sausage, cars are nothing more than a machine to get me from point A to point B quickly and in comfort.

So are you going to use a gas powered engine to compress the air for your car?  Or an electric one?

Fixed.

I'm more interested in this:

(http://www.evworld.com/images/aptera_doors.jpg) (http://www.aptera.com)

And this:

(http://ehnertia.net/~sidereal/v1sm.jpg) (http://flytheroad.com)

As an admitted gas/horsepower junkie, I think the Prius is really kind of cool.  The first time I rode in one, it was such a surreal feeling because it was so quiet.

But that Tatamobile will probably be a hit with small business couriers and law firm runners in medium sized cities.

Edit:  The bad thing about it is that an insurance company will probably total it at the slightest door ding/fender bender since labor costs (80 bucks plus per hour) alone to repair it would still be extremely high. 

The umbrella makes it. Is that how it flies? Poppins-powered.

Heh.

That picture actually looks photochopped.

I don't have a dick at all but I like a nice car.  And one that goes a wee bit faster than these.  Oh, and purple, too.  Or maroon/gold flip flop.  Something shiny and interesting, at least.  If I had one of the thingys pictured in this thread, I would want to be allowed to drive on the sidewalks otherwise it seems a waste of a proper driver's license.

It is.  That's a foam prototype pasted onto a delightful street scene.  The VentureOne is still in prototype stage, but it's just a reskinning of the Carver, which is already roadworthy as can be seen in these relaxing videos (http://flytheroad.com/vid_frame.html)

Also, it shares the name with Rusty's jet in The Venture Brothers, so that's a clear win.

There is someone who works near my that has one of those... I see it drive by ~ 5PM on some days. It is tiny and fugly.

Yes, they should care very much about what the 300 million people in the US think, instead of trying to sell them to the 2.4 billion Chinese/ Indians on the other side of the world who can now start to afford them with the amount of wealth spreading out from global outsourcing.

Whoops.

Eh?  Wheres the woops?  Why should we care they're buying millions of power wheels nobody in America likes?

We'll, other than the fact its going to raise world wide emissions massively, heh.

I've already talked the wife into getting as many of the smurfy new solar panels as we can fit on the roof, so we'll be using electric for as much as we can - the only thing left in the house that's not electric is the furnace and hot water heater. With the panels, air powered or electric for the car won't make much of a difference since the power will come from the same place either way. The hot water heater will be swapped out with an electric one when it fails in a year or two, and the heating/cooling I'm planning to switch to using several of these (http://www.mrslim.com/Products/Category.asp?ProductCategoryID=24) and controlling each room indivdually.

I think the Prius / Yaris / xD all look pretty slick to be honest.  I have been told I have no taste before though.

Still though, that... car... somehow looks smaller head/leg room-wise than the new Mini, and that's saying something.

Actually, they do - imo, the biggest reason the Prius outsells the similarly efficient/useful Civic Hybrid by a bazillion to one is because it screams 'LOOK AT HOW GREEN I AM!'

I've been keeping up with the Venture Vehicles thing - I hope they can come to market soon - I'd buy one in a heartbeat just for the Carver-style tilting mechanism.

The Prius gets better gas mileage and has better acceleration and has much more leg room in the back seat and has more cargo room.

Yes, but now that everyone has one, it's not as special as those other cars.

And they're still $2,500.

I don't care what the Big Three trained brains want people to think. A $2,500 car is a $2,500 car, and they'd sell like goddamned hotcakes over here at even twice that price. And the primary audience (new drivers and college kids) would at first grouse and then find some way to trick the shit out of them to make 'em cool.

But then they wouldn't graduate to the could-they-be-any-more-retarded-SUVs profit centers that Ford and the rest want you to buy.

Oh noes!

At the same time, at the big press event Tata had for this car, they wouldn't allow any of the press to even sit in it, even though they "drove" onto stage with it and had four execs step out of it. Not sure what that's all about.

OMG. Isn't that the Sinclair's C5 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/witness/january/10/newsid_4111000/4111177.stm) 23 years later?!!

(http://cache.viewimages.com/xc/3379965.jpg?v=1&c=ViewImages&k=2&d=89B856506CE54654FD9E1044932B3794A55A1E4F32AD3138)

It would except that it would have to be significantly modified to pass our emission and safety standards not to mention it would need a bigger engine to be freeway-worthy in this country. And then they would have to convince our government to allow them to import them into this country, which isn't going to happen, at least not at that price.

What Trippy said (though I think if they did fix all the problems to meet our standards, we would let them import them).  I mean, hell, the 65 mph limit kills it already.  Speed limit on interstate freeways in California is 70 mph, which is pretty much what the speed of traffic goes (or faster, heh) most of the time.  If you are going slower than the speed of traffic, you are a major hazard, and will be pulled over and given a ticket by the cops just as if you were speeding.  I also don't think it would popular here, even at $2,500.  People want something for their money, and these cars are not only fugly, your basically just getting 4 wheels with a steering wheel.  I only really see these being bought by major facilities or school campus's to use on site instead of just golf carts, but thats about it (beyond the Hippy market).  And Darniaq, no college student beyond the most freaky hippy/yuppie/WheresAFedoraEveryDayOnCampus student would ever touch that car.  Even if you found some retarded way to trick it out.

I thought you were going to say it ran on real actual city cats.

"How many HP does your car have?" "Zero - it runs on cat power."

Looking at these things, I'm surprised there aren't Flintstone feet sticking out the bottom of them.

It's clearly not meant for interstate highways, I don't even understand why you're thinking in that context. It seems like it would actually be pretty awesome for getting around a city, and finding parking would be a lot easier.

I think it's wicked cute! Then my partner and I are probably buying a Smart, so it's kind of our thing.

In the three US cities I've lived in for any appreciable amount of time (San Diego, Austin, and now Houston) I doubt I would have opportunity to use one of these things even once a week. These are medium to big cities where affordable and safe housing is often many freeway miles from work. I suspect a lot of other people are in the same situation.

It's not Tata's fault that so many US cities have ultimately unsustainable urban planning, though.

You also have to remember that this is being sold as a alternative for families of 4 travelling on a scooter. It isn't competing with 'other cars' it is competing with 'not owning a car'.

As for making it legal in the US, you'd undoubtedly have to do some work, because the US safety standards are very different to the rest of the world (the US requires protection from different types of accident - basically you're safer in the US from head on collision, but not so much from off-centre or side impacts), but the engine would probably be fine. It is impossible to understate how much the motor industry uses the US as a dumping ground for inefficient engines. I've no doubt you could tweak this engine, or introduce a modified version that would meet western legal requirements.

On emissions it meets Euro IV. Which means it is almost certainly close enough to be tweaked to meet whatever market you wanted to sell in.

Clearly it won't, however, be sold in the US or Europe. Because if Tata even wanted to enter either market they'd have so much headroom on pricing that they'd be daft not to bring along something bigger.

That car brings to mind two things:

• Oil at 200$ a barrel.
• A morbidly funny Top Gear crash test (http://www.topgear.com/content/timetoburn/sections/videos/45/broadband_wm.html) waiting to be filmed.

I'd give the car a shot if I had a chance. I pretty much only drive on surface roads, and the MPG rating would be sweet.

And there's the "whoops" again.

The Ameri-centric thinking.  My point was, they obviously don't give a flying fuck about the US.  And with good reason, car sales are competitive enough here with several companies hanging on by what seems to be only luck and a prayer. (I'm looking at you specifically, Chrysler)

They're the largest automobile manufacturer in India, and that's where the car's for.  Oh noes, it doesn't appeal to Americans and doesn't meet their safety standards!  It's not meant to.  Ever.  It's a car for crowded cities in India, where getting up to 65mph is probably moving way too fast.

Trippy's point about emissions and crash safety are big hurdles. I was more talking about the general appeal of them to the American crowd, but you can't consider having them here without those other factors.

So, change their classification to a motorcycle with a roof :-) I live in the Northeast. Highway speeds are there to piss people off by telling them how fast they could theoretically go. If they worked third shift, or everyone else went away...

Again too, this assumes these are road worthy, and not just some contrived prototype for a press conference that's leaving the staff engineers scratching their heads.

Not really any more than they are for every other car.

Every non-US car needs rejigging for the US, and every US car needs a bit of rework for non-US sales.

It's more that the US insists on different standards, rather than higher standards. Similarly what US customers value most (size & comfort for crusing on straight roads) is just plain different to what is valued everywhere else (acceleration, handling, comfort in city driving and on roads with corners). And despite that, most car companies can modify their products fairly easily, I don't see anything here that is inherently difficult to modify for the US if they wanted to.

When you think about it, it's pretty remarkable that US based companies own as much of the global motor industry as they do, given how disconnected US vehicles are from the pretty broad agreement on standards and the fairly consistent customer demand everywhere else.

The last time Americans looked at a dirt-cheap car and said "That's so fugly people will never buy it" was the Beetle.    There's a market for "dirt cheap", even in the US.  For people who can only afford a $2500 car, this is going to look like a pretty good alternative to a 10+ year old car.  If it doesn't have the shitty, unreliable power train of the Yugo, I'd expect to see these running around every college town and concentrated metro area.

--Dave

Put a little wagon behind it and it's still cheaper than a golf cart!

I haven't verified this, but my father mention oil futures for December are almost that high. He claimed it was based on this new car. If several million people (or several tens of millions of people) can now suddenly afford a car, they're going to want gas for it -- driving up demand.

I'm thinking 200 a barrel is a little high -- they have to be able to afford to fill their tank, after all. I suspect the car won't be the price bottleneck, but the gasoline that powers it.

Wonder if you can use it on LPG, CNC or good ol' cooking oil.

$2,500?  Psssh, this one is only $1,100! (http://<a href="http://M.assetbar.com/achewood/uua9tSgvG"><img src="http://M.assetbar.com/uuabg6DcV.gif"/></a>)


 :drill:

Welcome to the Houston contingent of f13!  We're up to a whopping three.

I could get away with one of these, but I rarely have to get on the major freeways.  Most Houstonians would have troubles with road safety, especially with the number of oversized SUVs and trucks here.

Tatas are boobies, you know.