An Indian auto manufacturer plans to sell a two-cylinder, 5-passenger automobile for just $2,500. Some predict that the Tata Nano will become the Model T of the developing world.
Flickr photo by bbjee.
Of course, some government officials worry that selling affordable cars to Indians will cause too much congestion and parking problems. Only the government would think like that. Imagine how ABC, CBS, and NBC would react if someone found a way to make televisions more affordable: “O woe is us! More affordable TVs will just make the demand for quality television higher.”
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Others will worry about peak oil and global warming. Never mind that the Nano is expected to get 54 miles per gallon. I am sure some won’t be satisfied with any car that uses any fossil fuels at all (not that they will stop driving one — but they will claim that they were “forced” to do so by the General Motors conspiracy).
Some of the comments on the New York Times article bemoaned the possibility that “another 200 million people driving cars” will increase the cost of gasoline. But who are we to say that only Americans and Europeans should enjoy the benefits of automobility?
Never forget that the automobile is the greatest invention of the last 200 years, one that has greatly increased the average American’s personal income and quality of life. Whether the Nano will do that for others is as yet unknown. But we should be happy for them if it does.
India’s experience might follow that of Malaysia in recent years. As the number of motorcycles on the road went down, so did the number of road fatalities.
So if India and China develop major auto industries, will that enable them to make use of that electric-power technology that GM has kept from us? Or will they take part in that conspiracy just like all the other non-American auto companies apparently have (I mean, how else would the conspiracy work?)? =)
Anything that gives Rajendra Pachauri nightmares can’t be all bad.
But the auto “the greatest invention of the last 200 years?” I’d put Henry Bessemer’s steel process first; no inexpensive, quality steel–no railroads, no reliable transoceanic freighters, and no indutrial infrastructure that would allow Henry to bang out all those tin lizzies. For that matter, I’d give it to the steam railroad before the auto (see Railroads Triumphant Oxford University Press, 1992).
The environmental outcry over the Tata is very interesting. If a politically conservative voice were to attack the Tata it would be attacked as being racist. If Americans can have cars, why can’t Indians? However, since environmentalists are doing the attacking, no one dares say this.
I’d put Henry Bessemer’s steel process first;
That’s a good one. Also, we wouldn’t have a billion Indians to convert to capitalists if we didn’t have the Haber process, which fixes N for fertilizer. The Green Revolution happened in India because of cheap fertilizer and the government subsidizing electricity to pump water for crops.
DS
“Never forget that the automobile is the greatest invention of the last 200 years, one that has greatly increased the average American’s personal income and quality of life.”
That’s a bit thin. Clicking through the link we are told that cars are best because they have had the effect of:
“Increasing personal incomes by seven times;”
Not because the average US citizen has gone from a poorly paid factory or farm job to a well paid office job, then?
Etc.
The claim by Dan about the Haber process is much better founded.
“There he said that if everyone will buy low cost car, it will create lot of traffic congestion and parking space problems and therefore we are looking into it very carefully.”
It’s a real problem, and I don’t know how the transport planners in India will fix it – but it’s really a problem for them.
It is a shame in many ways that they are not being more imaginative. In Africa there are very few telephone land lines, which has led to a bustling market in mobile phones. The Africans haven’t tried to make landlines cheaper, they’ve leapfrogged the problem. Mt greatest criticism of the Tata Nano is that they’re not trying to find out what comes after cars.
I’d also aver that penicillin or some other antiseptic is a more important invention than autos. Aspirin. Anything that has contributed to improving urban sanitation such that in the West, diseases of affluence have replaced contagious disease. Transistors. Microchips. Pesticides. Anyway,
In India also, the clever populace has foregone PCs because there are many providers streaming content/bandwidth to people’s cellphones. In fact, a spinoff of Bollywood will soon begin making movies just for cellphones – the 5-10 minutes it takes to wait for transport. Maybe this content will be watched by people stuck in traffic and be considered by Indians to be more important than personalized internal combustion transport.
DS
Your choice of cheaper televisions is a good analogy. But it is not the broadcaster’s reaction that is relevant. It is the reaction of power companies. They are the ones who have to invest in additional capacity. Similar to telcos having to add extra capacity for internet access when they were only able to charge a flat fee for local calls whether the call lasted ten minutes or ten hours. But at least it is easy to add more network capacity for phones and electricity. Just add more wires to existing utility poles. You can’t do that with roads and parking in cities where the middle classes live.