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Thread ID: 86275	2008-01-10 19:38:00	A $2500 Car: The Tata Nano, Unveiled in India	Strommer (42)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
629225	2008-01-13 09:41:00	I bet the NZ auto industry will try something like that as well... Building autos is a suckers game, unless you can successfully compete with the likes of Toyota, BMW etc., and have the military/economic power to stabilize oil prices. Thank Christ NZ no longer has one. Look at the US - monstrous amounts of money (taxpayer and sudsidies mostly) are used to keep it alive, and they still produce suckful cars that can't get sold anywhere but in the US itself. The Australian government paid Nissan and Mitsubishi millions (and tax concessions) to stay around, but they still failed/are failing. I can't understand the logic of Ratan Tata. More cars means more congestion and pollution, something already endemic in India. The low initial purchase price of the vehicle means people will care less initially about the price of petrol. A few years on and it will become a major problem.	vinref (6194)
629226	2008-01-13 11:44:00	No it's not . Really??? SO why would you think that India had no roads?	beeswax34 (63)
629227	2008-01-13 17:18:00	Really??? SO why would you think that India had no roads? Well . . wolforest is at least partially correct . . . even if it looks racist on the surface . Let me 'splain . . . . in a very short/concise post here . . . . . India . . . like China is slowly coming to the realization that the village mentality is NOT working . India is a little better off in this area . . there are some nice highways . . but they are not very arterial and can't serve the new super-centers of industry being built right now . India is working on it very well . . but it is catch-up at the best . Outposted centers of industry are going to be suffering for a while until it all comes into place . Since the advent of large corporate buildings and eco-friendly institutions are popping up all over the place . . . er . . . in both places . . . the old "bicycles" and water buffalo transportation isn't making it any more . The older established areas of trade and services are all overbuilt right now and the new expansion is going out to more virginal or not as built up- areas where displacement of people will cause the least amount of socio-economic damage . Read here: The peasants would revolt . The most serious problem is that these huge megalopoli (sp?) suck up all the local talent . . at least that which IS trainable, young enough and motivated enough to work for "the man", "Grand Poobah" or "Ichi-ban" . . Now they have to hire from outside of the immediate circle of hamlets to get the choice people they need . . and thusly comes commuters . Remember that most of these people are used to living an agrarian lifestyle and are being pulled into the vortex of technology like a quantum time-warp traveler . Don't say "trains, buses and carpools" . . it hasn't worked here (US) and the model here says it will not work well anywhere else except on a very small scale . Small scale is NOT what is needed to become competitive . We were promised personal commuter aircraft that would fold it's wings and become a car . Never happened . Allowing some fudge zone here, the mapping extrapolation (by people like youse guys . . not an insult . . just an observation) is that it LOOKS good on paper so it SHOULD work to just transport the masses of cattle/people in herds or let them telecommute . Nope! Reality sucks . . right? Unfortunately . . . the facts are that if a company gets large . . it needs a large pool of talent and it has to come from larger and larger circles of inclusion; especially so as it too expands . Some talent will retire . . some new hires don't work out, some are untrainable or have no skills that can be mined, some are sociopaths or Ganja smokers, some get preggo and need time off, some murder or commit crimes and go to jail . . . all sorts of reasons for attrition of the pool . Maybe the actual percentage of useful persons will be in the low 50% rate of the total population . (Somebody has to stay home, go to school, play the new video games or just wait for the bread winner to come home to hearth and kip . ) China is cranking out degreed engineers to the tune of millions a year . That's a step in the right direction . I imagine India is also in the same Orwellian mindset . China just recently had an exposé on this very problem on PBS-TV here . . . it's strange to see that they, like the US, have such a broad and spaced out area from which to draw talent (read: boonies people) . That's the trouble . . they are too diversely "out-landed", as they say it . They are suffering the same implosion as the US only for them now time is not a friendly foe . . it is an arch enemy and any country that cannot get itself up on the hind legs, full-tilt running . . . is gonna be lost in the technowars or take a very long time to catch up . The singular tough problem as I see it is that these countries don't have the infrastructure in the form of highways and bridges to allow for commuters to travel easily to and fro . . . and that is a very large and so far, un-addressed situation . Some of the roads that DO exist are just wide enough for two passing oxen and a narrow cart . Mud or stones in deep muddy areas and some tree limbs thrown into holes in the road are not conducive to high speed transportation . . . . even in a $2500 . 00 car . Then you have the shipping/handling of raw goods and then finished products that are going to need well-built and substantial roads . . and yet also be near enough to ports and train depots to make the transport of the goods cheap and easy enough to be competitive . Trucking (diesel or even hydrogen fueled trucks) (NZ: lorrys) sucks fuel . . and that ups the price of transportation . They are at the same crossroads as the US in the 1930s . . . "A chicken in every pot; a car in every garage"- type mentality . They are playing a very volatile and dangerous game of lightspeed catch-up . Only thing is that at that time, the US could afford to get the kinks out of it's system and became very much the top dog in industry . This is where the transistor was invented . Detroit iron ruled . . . electronics were being innovated and innovating and the US had the future all sewn up . The thread failed as the seams bulged . Those days are gone now . . . so India and China should read their history books . . . . or they too will repeat all the wrong designs and social flowcharts . The environment is gonna get whacked badly in this quest . It already is! For all intents and purposes, it is the year 2010 now in terms of logistics, not the 1930s or '40s . BTW: The US is now officially in a full-blown recession . B of A just bought a bad debt (let me restate that: They bought the BIGGEST bad debt in the country!!!) for a tax write-off . This is gonna start a very big ball rolling . Just thought you'd like to know . </short article>	SurferJoe46 (51)
629228	2008-01-13 23:43:00	I drove a Double Decker bus around India in 1982-83. London-Kathmandu, then around India, then back to London. The roads back then were fairly quiet and the only things once out of the cities were Tata Trucks (Indian Made Mercedes Benz which broke down anywhere and everywhere) and a few OX Carts. In the Cities the old Ambassador taxi's, modelled on the old British Morris Oxford were common, the Rickshaws, Tuktuk's and a few of the very polluting Phatphat (Larger Tuktuk with a Harley Davidson Engine, seated about 8-9). Driving into the centre of Bombay was real slow. People walking, Ox, bikes, taxis, Tata buses, it was like the slowest few miles I have ever driven. At that time a lot of the country roads were narrow and very rough and meeting a Tata would be a cat and mouse game as to who pulled off the road to let the other past first. Since they had open cabs we used to toss in the odd banger (large fire cracker from Nepal) which would wake the driver up a bit. We met an Ox cart one night and the driver was sound asleep. We stopped and turned the cart around to head back to where it came from, the driver never woke up. The huge distances in India might not be so good for this new little car, but in the Cities it might be good. I would assume that India's roads have improves in the past 25 years.	Bantu (52)
629229	2008-01-14 00:04:00	Building autos is a suckers game, unless you can successfully compete with the likes of Toyota, BMW etc . , and have the military/economic power to stabilize oil prices . Thank Christ NZ no longer has one . Look at the US - monstrous amounts of money (taxpayer and sudsidies mostly) are used to keep it alive, and they still produce suckful cars that can't get sold anywhere but in the US itself . The Australian government paid Nissan and Mitsubishi millions (and tax concessions) to stay around, but they still failed/are failing . I can't understand the logic of Ratan Tata . More cars means more congestion and pollution, something already endemic in India . The low initial purchase price of the vehicle means people will care less initially about the price of petrol . A few years on and it will become a major problem . Well said . As for Tata, he owns the biggest business in India (so I believe) and is simply responding to the growing middleclass demand for vehicles . India is moving away from gasoline to LPG in a effort to reduce air pollution so I am a bit surprised this vehicle has a petrol engine .	Winston001 (3612)
629230	2008-01-14 00:04:00	BTW: The US is now officially in a full-blown recession . B of A just bought a bad debt (let me restate that: They bought the BIGGEST bad debt in the country!!!) for a tax write-off . This is gonna start a very big ball rolling . Just thought you'd like to know . </short article> Thanx . Our interest rates went up here last week because of your recession . .	paulw (1826)
629231	2008-01-14 00:06:00	NZ auto industry? that went out with the "duzgo" www.uthink.co.nz We don't make them here any more but they sure sell them or are all those franchise car dealers I see avery day a part of "Duzgo Land" ??	paulw (1826)
629232	2008-01-14 02:13:00	Well said. As for Tata, he owns the biggest business in India (so I believe) Nah, that would be the combined Reliance Industries, owned by Anil and Mukesh Ambani. They own like EVERYTHING in India or it seems and there isn't a industry where they aren't involved.	beeswax34 (63)
629233	2008-01-14 04:19:00	Thanx. Our interest rates went up here last week because of your recession.. That's because your money is more valuable that the US dollar.	SurferJoe46 (51)
629234	2008-01-14 20:09:00	Now fuels gonna be more expensive thanks to all these countries that are only just coming into the car/driving world (or at least starting to) I have always said that once the average person in China and India get a car fuel will not be more expensive ! it will be IMPOSSIBLE TO GET ! Which takes me back to my post of a few months ago on global warming in which I said the only way to stop global warming (if it is caused by mankind) is to start reducing the world population , by which every country would have to adopt China's policy of one child per family until the population starts going down. Regards Digby	Digby (677)
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