Tata claims Nano a 'safe' car in new ads

Tata Motors has embarked on a new advertisement campaign on the 'safety' aspect for recommencing booking of small car Nano, which has been in the news for catching fire on a few occasions.

"We've built a car in which safety is part of standard equipment," the company said.

The Nano comes with safety features such as "monocoque chassis and crumple zones today", it added.

The advertisement, which appeared in a national daily today for booking of the car, assumes significance in the wake of six incidents of Nanos catching fire across the country since its commercial launch in March, 2009.
    
In the latest such incident, a Nano car caught fire in the capital on August 27. It prompted Tata Motors to say that it would look into the cause of the incident, which came three months after a company probe had declared the car "absolutely safe".
    
The previous incidents were reported from across the country, including Mumbai, Lucknow and near Vadodara.
    
The advertisement also said buyers can book the car with a down payment of Rs 21,424 and with a monthly installment of Rs 1,892.
    
Dealer sources said booking has already re-started from this week and the cars are "almost ready" for deliveries. They were earlier offering the Nano off-the-shelf.
    
However, when contacted, a Tata Motors spokesperson said: "Booking has not started yet... When to start the booking is still being decided."
    
He said that the company is selling the car in the open market only in Kerala.
    
Giving details about the payment process, the Tata Motors-published print campaign said: "EMI/down payment (is) calculated on 85 per cent of on-road price for Nano BSIV, Ex- (showroom) Delhi for a 7-year period."
    
Although the company did not mention the price of the car, it will be costlier by 3-4 per cent as announced by the auto-maker earlier.
    
Tata Motors had announced that it would increase the Nano price by 3-4 per cent, which translates into a hike ranging from Rs 3,700 to Rs 6,894 (based on ex-showroom, Delhi prices) once it completes delivery to the first one lakh customers.
    
It had said the first one lakh customers are price- protected and they would get their cars at the announced price of Rs 1.23 lakh-Rs 1.72 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).
    
The company had earlier last year selected 1.55 lakh customers for delivering the car in two phases. It is in the process of handing over the first one lakh cars, which will be completed by the end of this year. It has already delivered over 50,000 units.