When Ratan Tata, chairman of the Tata Group, unveiled the Nano at a motor show in Delhi this month, he captured the imagination of the automotive world with the “one-lakh car”.
Billed as the cheapest new car on the planet at Rs100,000 pre-tax (a lakh is 100,000), the surprisingly spacious four-seater did more than set a new floor for global automobile prices. Its launch may come to be seen as the moment when India became a serious manufacturing rival to China and the other export-oriented economies of east Asia.
