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$2500 Tata
”Blue Steel: $2500 Tata Nano May Become Slightly More Pricey
Ratan Tata wowed the world when he revealed his company's Tata Nano, the miniscule two-cylinder, four-door runabout designed to go to market with an equally tiny $2,500 price tag. Now, due to pressures from rising commodity prices, Tata may be in jeopardy of missing that now famous 1-lakh goal. Steel prices have jumped 30% since the car's initial unveil in January, while the cost of plastics, silicon and fuel oil have risen as well. So what's next for the bottom line? More »Ta Ta, Land Rover: British Army Replaces Defender With American Ridgback
In a truly majestic snub, the British Ministry of Defence has elected to replace its forward fleet of Land Rover Defenders with American-made "Ridgback" (or "Ridgeback" depending upon source) 4x4 armored trucks. The new vehicles are said to provide better protection for troops, better handling — better "manoeuverability" in the Queen's English, and, gasp, better reliability! We're not sure if the replacement plans are a tacit acknowledgement that there is no more British auto industry left to which the government should be loyal, or if British forces were simply getting tired of Lucas Electrics letting the smoke out deep down Kandahar way, where there's not only no proper service facility, but the tea is positively ghastly. [Autocar.uk, Photo Credit: Rover Nut @ Flickr]More Evidence Points To Hummer Sale; Russians, Chinese Interested?
More evidence is emerging that GM is moving quickly to solve its Hummer problem. The Detroit Free Press reports today on John Voss, a Dayton-area dealer who purchased a Hummer franchise in April, who says that GM offered to refund his money. "They have three choices and they said they want to make this decision very quickly," Voss said. "They are either going to make a smaller Hummer hybrid and change the H2, close the brand or sell it." Given the lead time needed to create a Hummer hybrid or impose radical changes to the H2 and the implications of closing the brand, a sale still seems to be the most practical option for GM. More »Jaguar Moving To New Jersey, Employees To Adopt Comical Accents
We suggest you not underestimate the staggering drawing power of the Garden State, especially to English companies that are now Indian companies. Jag is joining the club and moving its HQ and approximately 50 employees from Irvine, CA to New Jersey. Why is Jersey, already home to luxury automaker BMW, so appealing to Jaguar and Tata executives? Was it the Paramus Mall? Bon Jovi? Not quite. More »Tata Looking At Buying Hummer, Jokes Write Themselves
Okay, sooner or later Tata is going to have to stop making headlines, 'cause we're really, really trying to cut back on the innuendo. But today we get news that Tata is considering purchasing the brand GM may be trying to shed, Hummer. And even with our newfound restraint, we have to admit we had a mild aneurysm at the innuendo potential. Nobody from either the GM or Tata side is willing to make a comment on the possible sale, but word is that GM is shopping the brand around to the Indian mega-conglomerate. This makes us wonder, how does Tata greenwash itself when it builds a tiiiiiiny car, and a giant, gas-guzzling SUV? Well, we're sure they'll figure it out — Hummer tatas! [India Times]
tata nano
First Video Of Tata Nano Actually Driving, The $2,500 Money Shot
Ever since the Tata Nano set the world ablaze with the promise of the $2,500 car, we've been anxious to see one actually driving around. Alas, courtesy of a couple of dudes with a camera we now have the video of the half-pint people mover actually moving people. And unlike those fancy American cars, there's no need for serious camo on the Tata Nano when testing, as that would drive the price of the car up to $2,501. Check out the jumpy, blotchy video above. [YouTube via TopSpeed]2010 Jaguar XF-R
KGP, the quickest-snapping spy photographers this side of Jim Dunne (he doesn't wait to focus) just caught the best shots yet of the up-powered 2010 Jaguar XF-R as it rolled through the city streets somewhere in the UK. Check out those hood vents, that big and aggressive front air dam and the grille's new strainer-like mesh treatment. As far as the powerplant, KGP tells us"Sources report that the XF-R will get a new supercharged 5.0-liter V8 making a minimum of 500 horsepower, so Jaguar clearly appears to have the likes of the BMW M5 and AMG E63 in its sights."Yes, this pretty kitty positively oozes the feel of performance. Maybe it will help to overcome that rear end quarter panel that positively oozes the look of a Dodge Intrepid. Full spy report after the jump. Wait, Jim Dunne's still alive? Who knew? — Ed.
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Renault-Nissan And Bajaj Team Up On Tata-Upstaging $2,500 Car
Ratan Tata and his eponymous company sent the automotive world buzzing with news of their $2,500 car, the lilliputian Nano. At the time, we reported that Bajaj Auto, which is partnered with Renault-Nissan, was going to announce a $3,000 car. Turns out the companies have found a way to cut $500 off the price to create a $2,500 competitor. To make this car the three companies are creating a new company with ownership split between Renault (25%), Nissan (25%) and Bajaj Auto (50%). No name on the car other than the codename "ULC" which we can only guess stands for "Uncomfortable, Little and Cheap." The car is to be sold in India in early 2011 as the primary market. Press release below the jump. More »Volga Display Of Prana: Russian Automaker GAZ Seeks Partners In India
Apparently this has been out there for a while, but before we discussed the news that Gorkovsky Avtomobilny Zavod, manufacturers of the Volga line of hulking vehicular tragicomic props, was looking for partners on the Indian subcontinent, we needed to find press releases with the right sort of Moose-Und-Sqvirrel feel. More »
industry news
Tata Strikes a Deal. Now What?
The Jaguar and Land Rover employees I’ve talked to recently — the few still on the payroll — say that Ford cut off financial life support for the brands a while back. The U.S. headquarters building in Irvine, Calif., for Ford’s crumbling Premier Automotive Group, of which Jaguar and Land Rover were key components, is eerily empty.Tata Now Owns Jaguar, Land Rover, Rover, Daimler And Lanchester
Apparently, we were more prescient (or slow) than we thought when we asked "Who Should Tata Buy Next?" It turns out that, as part of the Ford-Tata deal, Tata ended up owning not only the Jaguar and Land Rover brands, but also Daimler, Rover and Lanchester. Someone is going to have to re-do that chart. The story of how the names have transfered is kind of hilarious and featured under the jump. It also may have played into the mysterious $300 million that evaporated from the big deal this week.More »
Commenter Of The Day: Reversal Of Fortune Edition
Try this on for size: Between the wars, at its pinnacle in the 20th century, Britain exerted dominion over almost half a billion people. Yes, yes, it would all go completely to crap in less than 50 years and leave us associating the UK with the likes of the Spice Girls, Simon Cowell and Amy Winehouse. Imperialists all, in their own ways, but not exactly the same thing. Anyway, the sheer global vastness of the Pax Britannica is not something that exits collectively memory all that quickly, even as the land of King Arthur and Winston Churchill sheds assets like they were going out of style. We hinted at this development in our Question Of The Day, which focused on increasingly mighty Tata Motors and the matter of whom they should next acquire, after Jaguar and Land Rover. Which of course brings us to the realignment of power and influence that's currently afoot, and to our COTD. More »Who Should Tata Buy Next?
As we learned yesterday, every automaker owns every other automaker and it's just a matter of who gets the biggest piece of the pie. And now that the Tata-Land Rover-Jag-Ford deal is all-but complete, we can officially anoint Ratan Tata as the hungriest hippo in the automotive world. We'd also point out that the main Tata hinted at getting a stake in Ferrari next. With the impending Nano and a gigantic market, can he be stopped? More »Ford Officially Selling Jaguar, Land Rover To Tata For $2.3 Billion, Song And Dance
While many decided yesterday to report "officially" that Ford was shaking Jaguar and Land Rover free to the Indian subcontinent for $2.6 billion we knew it was prudent to wait and report it as merely rumor because that number just didn't sound right. That's because here at Jalopnik, we "get" the US auto industry and we knew that when an 'merican automaker (German automakers too — that's right Daimler, we're looking straight at you) spends billions of dollars to bring a brand back to solvency, you expect a sale price to in no way reflect that. Ford didn't disappoint. You see, the sale's actually for $2.3 billion — $300-some-odd million less than yesterday's "whisper number." But wait, there's more. In addition to the cash transaction with Tata Motors, they'll also inject a hot $600 million capital infusion into the pension plans of the two brands. You know, because they haven't already sent enough money into the black hole that was Ford's PAG. Full press release after the jump. More »CNBC Asia Reporting Tata, Ford To Close Deal For Jaguar, Land Rover Shortly
The version of "America's Business Channel" spiced with a taste of Asia is reporting Tata's close to finalizing a deal with Ford for Jaguar and Land Rover we've been reporting on for what seems like forever. A Tata Group spokesman said discussions were still going on and the company had no guidance to give reporters on the deal, but a variety of sources are now claiming signatures could be put on paper as early as tomorrow on a deal we're hearing to be less than $2.65 billion. Ratan Tata, the founder and CEO of Tata Motors, is reportedly so excited, he's tried to shake a set of Jaguars. Hmm, that isn't quite as funny.
tara tiny
Tara Tiny Is The New Tata Nano, Priced At $2,450
The race to the bottom continues as Bengal Enamel's Tara International will be teaming with Chinese company Aucma to produce a sub-sub-1-lakh car called the Tara Tiny. Yes, the little-known company seeks to lakh-block the Tata Nano by building a range of electric powered two- and four-seat cars starting at a rock bottom price of 99,000 Indian Rupees, 999 Rupees less than the price media outlets originally reported. With a grand total of 35 moving parts and a range of 100 km, the Tiny should be an urban drivers dream come true — low maintenance costs, eight hour recharge time via a 250 V outlet, and no need for costly speeding tickets (it only goes about 30 mph).More »
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