Retail News Update

Head of the Tata Group Ratan Tata would like to retire from active business life after his dream project “the Rs one-lakh car” is launched successfully.

Tata said, “In an ideal world, after the small car has been launched and is successful, that would be a nice time for me to exit,” to a daily.

Tata Motors, the automotive arm of the over Rs three- trillion market value group, is scheduled to unveil the vehicle, touted as the world’s cheapest mass-produced car, on 10^th January at an auto expo in New Delhi.
Rival car makers are, however, not convinced about the safety and emission standards of the car, coming as it is at that price level.
Reacting to this, Tata told to a daily that “we are producing a car that will be no more polluting than a motorcycle.”
Tata told to a news paper, which has named him among the three entrepreneurs making their presence felt around the world, “as we are not going to produce millions and millions of them, inundating the country, we will not be adding to the carbon footprint on a per-passenger basis.”
The report said that there was a big gap between the cost of the average two-wheeler and entry-level cars such as the Maruti 800, which retails for about 5,000 dollars, and Tata plans to fill it.
“The only reason we did not make the Rs one-lakh car a hybrid, for example, is that it could not have been priced at Rs one lakh,” said Tata, who celebrated his 70th birthday on 28^th December. News paper said that Tata would be one of the most visible faces of the new India in 2008.

When asked whether he has “the fire in his belly for a further five years,” Tata told the daily, “Not Really.”