Indian industrial visionary Ratan Tata, who passed on 9 October 2024, is in mourning among the automobile industry. The saga in the automobile sector, especially the ambitious yet challenging Tata Nano project, bears the sign of a deep desire to revolutionise mobility for millions of Indians.

The Tata Nano came out of a poignant observation. “What really motivated me was constantly seeing Indian families on scooters, maybe the child sandwiched between the mother and father, riding to wherever they were going, often on slippery roads,” Tata shared on Instagram in 2022. That view led him to the design of an affordable four-wheeler for the masses.

Thought of as a safer variant compared to two wheelers, this venture hence branched off from simple doodles of a dune buggy, which eventually turned into popularly known as the world’s cheapest car. Launched in 2008, the Nano was priced almost at Rs 1 lakh making it marginally costlier than many two-wheelers.

Although this is the dream, the journey towards it was quite full of experiences and challenges. The project faced grave setbacks in various forms: protests over the purchase of land for the manufacturing plant, court battles for settlements, and ultimately, relocation to another state.

Despite being a very noble intent, it could not find its market at an affordable price tag. The very factor that initially made it revolutionary, positioning it as the cheapest car in India, ironically turned out to be its Achilles’ heel. Indian consumers seemed to aspire for something more than just affordability in their first four-wheeler.

One may well look at Nano’s commercial failure, but it marked the unrelenting commitment of Ratan Tata to his dream of inclusive mobility. “The Nano was always meant for all our people,” he wrote in an Instagram post dated May 12, 2022, even as sales figures would have said otherwise. The model was phased out in 2018, but its legacy remained something of a great and ambitious attempt at democratizing four-wheeler mobility in India.

It has been a long run of remarkable success for Tata when it comes to the world of automobiles beyond the Nano. It was 1998 that Tata Indica marked the beginning of India’s own indigenous passenger car industry, in an era when the Indian consumer had far less choices, largely restricted between foreign models or at best ‘strategically’ modified version of international brands, as evidenced by this car, which eventually proved to be a more than credible testimonial of Indian engineering capability.

Tata’s game-changer acquisition in 2008, purchasing Jaguar Land Rover for $2.3 billion, was very dramatic, as it marked the end of nine years after the humiliating encounter with Bill Ford, then the Chairman of Ford, when that gentleman had questioned the automotive acumen of Tata. The spectacular turnaround of JLR under Tata’s leadership silenced critics and arguably stands as one of the most successful examples of an Indian company reviving a legacy western brand.

It was only recently that Tata Motors came out as the leader in Indian electric vehicle activity. Wielding 73% market share and selling over 150,000 EVs last year, it has dominated the transition to green mobility. Models like the Tiago EV hatchback and Nexon EV SUV have brought electricity to Indian middle-class mobility, much like Ratan Tata’s original vision: making mobility available to everyone.

There may yet be an electric epilogue to a Nano story. In 2022, a company called Electra EV fitted an electric powertrain into a Tata Nano that was delivered to Ratan Tata himself. That is a possible renaissance for the people’s car in an electric avatar.
As the nation is in mourning mode, this industrial titan gives his farewell now, but what Ratan Tata has created in the automobile sector is simply indelible.