One of the most important events in the history of automobiles on our planet has happened. The Tata Nano has been launched!
Welcome the most-anticipated Indian car ever. This story is a part of a special leading up to the launch of the Tata Nano.
Nano Mania
I. The history of the people's car
Vehicles built for popular consumption are not a new phenomenon. They are, in every case, popular, innovative and in their time, cheap. Four cars have excelled at this in the past, and every one of them is revered today as a milestone in the history of cars.
The people's car is not a new idea. At various times in history, a manufacturer has either recognised the demand for one, or has been forced by the need of the hour to create one. In every case, the car that has resulted has shared some common attributes - their inexpensive price tags, their
reliability and in time, their iconic status. One thing is for sure, this is not the complete list of people's cars, but these four, we believe, are the most important icons of that popular category of cars.
Ford Model T
The Model T, or Tin Lizzie, predated other people's cars by a decade and was the first production car. This you know. Henry Ford's goal was simple, "I will build a car for the great multitude. It will be large enough for the family, but small enough for the individual to run and care for. It will be constructed of the best materials, by the best men to be hired, after the simplest designs that modern engineering can devise. But it will be low in price that no man making a good salary will be unable to own one - and enjoy with his family the blessing of hours of pleasure in God's great open spaces." And in hindsight, he succeeded on all of those fronts, right? The 20.2hp, 2.9-litre inline four was reliable and powerful enough to drag the T to over 65kmph. Prices began at $850 in 1909 but fell to about $450 by 1915. Which was dirt cheap compared to the other cars at the time, which tended to stay over the $2,000 mark. Today, that would peg the Ford Model T at roughly $9120 or Rs 4.7 lakhs.
Fiat Topolino
It wasn't quick, it wasn't fast, it was difficult to fix thanks to its size. But Fiat's Topolino ('Little Mouse', the Italian name for Mickey Mouse) was pleasing to look at, drank almost nothing and proved to be spacious. And that was enough to make it a legendary car. The Fiat 500 (official name) was produced from 1936 to 1955, although truth be told, it almost never got made.
The plan for the car was in the building back in 1919, but though brochures were printed, the car wasn't minted. In 1934, Agnelli, Fiat's boss visualised the 5,000 lire people's car that would carry two adults and 50kg of stuff. Dante Giacosa, a young aeronautical engineer worked on the powertrain while Rudolfo Schaffer created the two-part body. The 500 was ready. It cost 8,000 lire, then, way over the target, but the buying public didn't notice, really. Until 1955, without any major mechanical mods, the Fiat 500/Topolino ran a 569cc four-cylinder side-valve water-cooled engine mounted ahead of the front axle. It could hit 85kmph, return almost 17kmpl and was priced at Lire 8900 (roughly $440, then), which, adjusted for inflation works out to $6620 (Rs 3.42 lakhs) today. In the 1955, the new 500 Fiat launched turned out to be so iconic, that the new one is remembered today as the Fiat 500, and not the Topolino.
VW Beetle
There's isn't much that hasn't been said about Volkswagen's Beetle. You should already know about its charm, how Hitler and Ferdinand Porsche had roles to play in its creation, how popular it was, and remains and so forth. The Type 1, as it was known internally, gained the name of Käfer, the German word for beetle, and that's what we know it has. Its spawned a variety of versions, and very few were officially called the Beetle. Point is, the car was a triumph of simplicity and reliability. The original was supposed to carry two adults and three children at speeds of up to 100kmph. At launch, there was a special scheme that allowed Germans to buy the car for 990 Reichsmarks, roughly US$ 235. Adjusted for inflation that works out to US$ 3425 or Rs 1.8 lakh. That's roughly half the price of the Topolino - a contemporary people's car - mind you. Obviously, the scheme included subsidised prices, but there it is - cheap and best. Ironic as it is, the Beetle and the factory it was made in almost didn't survive the aftermath of WWII. But it was the British - first due to their lack of interest in moving the factory to Britain, and later, due to British Major Ivan Hirst who extracted an unexploded bomb and restarted production - who are actually responsible for the Beetle's subsequent rise to popular cult icon.
Citroen 2CV
Pierre-Jules Boulanger wanted a small, cheap car ('umbrella on wheels') that would take two peasants, 100kg of produce at 60kmph, returning 33kmpl. And it would have to traverse a field without breaking the eggs it was carrying. The 'Deux Chevaux' did all of this, and how! Having somehow survived WWII, and in the process losing aluminium parts to steel, the final 2CV appeared in public in 1948 at the Paris Show. At launch in 1949, the 2CV beat its many detractors by proving wildly successful among the lower-income populace. Within months, the waiting list grew to three years and used 2CVs were actually more expensive to buy because new ones would take time. The original 375cc flat-twin produced a laughable 9bhp, and the engine saw upgrades that, er, took care of the lack of power to some extent. But the 2CV was never about performance. It was reliable, cheap and it got the job done. The thousands and thousands of buyers confirmed that it did that with a cheerful demeanour. By 1955, the 2CV was priced at roughly $1200 in the US. Today that would mean $9195 or Rs 4.75 lakhs.
The Tata Nano, as you can see already, will be part of this legend. In the past few decades, we've lost, to some extent, the focus on the people's car. Ratan Tata has ensured, with the Nano, that popular cars for the populace will come back in fashion.
II. Ratan Tata's Dream
Ratan Tata met an extremely select group of senior editors before he unveiled the Nano at the Auto Expo. This remains the most detailed interaction he has had with journalists since the Nano hype hit the global buzzwire and sent it spinning into a frenzy.
It seems the seed that will blossom into the Nano was sown years and years ago in Kolkata (then, Calcutta), when Mr Tata would use the iconic hand-pulled rickshaws. He would consider a solution to the problem of his own personal safety and of the obviously hard life that the puller must go through. His visits to plant showed him a similar problem - a sort of inherent disregard for the comfort of and to some extent the safety of the workers. This brought him to the conclusion that safety is affected, among other factors, by fatigue.
Obviously, this applies to our lives in many aspects. And perhaps the one situation relevant here is a pretty common sight - family of four on a scooter. We've all been there before - kid on the front, second kid in mother's arms, and dad riding. In the days of the Lambretta, riding on the spare wheel was a special privilege, even. But is that really safe? We all know the answer. Add in the normally greasy Indian roads, especially during our fairly violent monsoon, and poor visibility at night, and you have a rather precarious situation.
While Tata admits that scooters have their place - their a step-up from bicycles and so forth - it started him thinking of a solution to the problem.
He admits to thinking about adding, in effect, a roll cage. He considered adding two wheels to the back for stability - a cheap trike, even. Then he spotted BMW's C1, which was, in effect exactly the thing he'd been thinking of. We all know that as quirky and logical as the C1 was, it was a sales flop. Riders didn't take to it because the roll-cage structure added weight to the top, which made handling a bit weird. Today, the C1 remains an icon, but hardly something remembered as an innovation that changed the world.
Tata says that the only difference between his vision of a safer two-wheeler and the C1, perhaps, was the fact that the C1 was, determinedly, a proper two-wheeler, while his vision was of a roll-caged trike.
This led him to start considering four-wheelers. Initially, this dream circled scooter parts to keep costs in check. And when Tata brought up the idea at an ACMA (Automotive Component Manufacturers' Association) meeting - he wanted to collaborate with other Asian manufacturers to jointly design and produce an Asian peoples' car, the response was not encouraging. He said, candidly, that only Brij Mohan Munjal showed any positive response, but the idea was never taken forward by either party.
When Tata realised that the scooter part focus was part of the problem in the design and not really a solution, the dream restarted afresh. This time from scratch. Tata wanted no legacy influence on the design, which allowed it to break free from the shackles of convention and history, as it were.
It was this design process that threw up the fact that a three-wheeler was unfeasible. That the car couldn't be anything but a proper car to succeed. Initially, the focus was a 'rural car.' Ideas like rolled up plastic curtains, open doors - like an auto rickshaw, or a open cutout with a safety bar were all duly brought up and eventually, rejected. It had to be a proper car, Tata reasserted. It became clear to him and his associates that the
end result should be a car, not something people could dismiss as an autorickshaw with four wheels or a scooter with doors. In 1998, Chrysler showed a concept car called the CCV, or Composite Concept Vehicle. While the concept itself didn't really make that big a splash, it's message - you can build cars with plastics - stayed with Tata. Engineering plastics can fulfil the structure demands but they have an obvious cost benefit - they are coloured by pigmentation, not painting. The whole plastic is the colour your perceive, the paint is not a layer on top. This saves the cost of painting the car. But once again, the idea ran into trouble when the team realised that the plastic car would always be just that. A car, at least in people's heads, had to be of metal.
That, really, laid the foundation of the Nano program. The Nano had to be a proper car, but to keep the cost in mind, Tata's team would have to work really, really hard to pare down the costs. As Tata said at that breakfast meeting, it's taken the company a really long time - he estimates that the program took between a year and a half or two years longer than it should have. All of the challenges, according to him, were cost related. Tata needed something to compare the Nano against, and they took the Maruti 800 as the benchmark. The Nano had to equal or exceed the M800 on various aspects. Now, if the Nano was to match the 800 in, say, acceleration, then the car would have to have a larger engine - which meant corresponding costs would have be pared off some other part of the car, and some parts would have to be repackaged to create space for the larger engine.
III. The innovations in the Nano
So, how exactly did Ratan Tata and his team get the price of the Nano where they wanted it? Before you start screaming cost-cutting, there's more to it than just that. The Nano team scratched their heads, put on their thinking caps and if you're a management type, they even brainstormed. It's no wonder that the Nano and patent applications appear to have gone in hand in hand.
At this moment, a fair amount of information on how the Nano was brought to its intended price tag without compromising its design brief - 'a proper car' - is yet to be announced. But here is what we do know.
1. ECU
The ECU, or engine control unit, is a central part of any modern day motor. It is in effect a small computer that controls all aspects of engine operation. Given the sheer complexity of even the simplest engines, they can be expensive. The complexity is not inherent, it is needed because an engine today must satisfy emissions norms, sound norms, produce an acceptable spread of power, return an acceptable level of economy and still more. This complexity makes it crucial and in the case of the Nano, expensive. However, Tata worked with Bosch to take the ECU down to an unprecedented price. Among the solutions employed, is the fact that the sensors used by the ECU to govern the engine are down to half the usual number. And from what we hear on the Nanos testing in and around Pune, the engine works perfectly.
2. Wiper
Sometimes it's in the details. Ratan Tata's direction to the designers at IDea - to reduce the wiper count to one has been well-publicised. The usual subtext was that it neatened up the car's looks. While true, it's a part of the cost-conscious design that's ensured that careful design ensures lower costs without compromising useability.
3. Small wheels and mounting
The Nano's cuteness is in part due to the tiny wheels it rolls on. These aren't incidental either. The Nano was carefully designed to use these. Small wheels are lighter, which positively impacts economy, performance and ride quality. Further, these wheels were mounted with only three lugs, again,keeping costs in mind while examining and improving decisions that have become automatic in car design. The small wheels and the light weight have also ensured that power steering will probably not be missed in the car - again, this saves cost and complexity. Further, the design team split the tyre sizes to give the front a slightly thinner spec, while keeping the driven wheels fatter. This balances the impact of the wider track at the front, and in driving terms should endow the car with mild understeer at the limit - which is a safety feature. If Tata hadn't planned for the understeer you would probably have got a car like the early Porsches which had a rearward weight bias that resulted in their famously snap oversteer characteristics. In simpler terms, the Nano has a rearward weight bias due to the engine. This, on its own, can be a problem when taking corners at speed, where the rear end starts to behave sort of like a pendulum, dragging the car off the line. The engineered understeer counteracts this and should produce, depending on how good the design is, a balanced, neutral car. And lest we forget, smaller tyres mean less rubber, so theyshould be cheaper as well.
And don't forget the non-opening hatch. That means no costs in terms of beading, hinges and locks, and that the whole panel can be a relatively cheap addition to the monocoque which will add to the strength of the chassis without adding cost.
4. Light body
The extremely light body weight indications suggest that Tata found some sort of format that allows the upper monocoque to remain pretty light without compromising the chassis rigidity. What is already known is that the Nano uses a light gauge metal body and the production process will aim for minimum wastage.
5. Engine format/placement
The four-stroke parallel twin 624cc engine has been the source of most of Tata's patents that come from the Nano project. The single-counter balancer equipped motor is being labelled as a world first for a car application. The engine is fuel-injected, of course, and we expect the final spec to show that it is a two-valve single overhead cam design. But it wasn't the engine alone that's worthy of being mentioned. It's how Tata have mounted it. The rear-engine configuration isn't new, but to be honest, not many manufacturers have tried it recently. When Volkswagen announced the Up, they planned a rear-engine format as well because of its cost implications. The Up is front-engined now only because VW found it hard to engineer given that all of its other cars were in that format - which makes it most cost-effective to engineer. If it wasn't for that legacy,VW's Up would be rear-engined too.
Tata doesn't have those legacy issues. The rear-engine, rear-wheel drive format, at the most obvious eliminates the driveshaft and saves some money. But in the Nano's case, it's the packaging that's stunning. As you saw in the Auto Expo, aside from the air intakes ahead of the rear wheel
arches, there's almost no indication as to where the engine is. This is because the motor is behind and under the rear seats. The hatch does not open - more on that in a bit - and the engine is accessed by flipping the rear seats forward. The hard to access format suggests that Tata have
produced an engine that is pretty reliable. But more importantly, it's non-intrusion into the passenger cabin is part of the slew of solutions that liberate what Tata is calling generous interior space - 21 per cent more than the Maruti 800!
6. Central instruments and dashboard
While it just looks quirky and cute at first glance, the central meters and the dash on the Nano are actually a rather clever piece of kit. First of all, a central meter set eliminates the need to adapt that large plastic assembly for right- and left-hand drive markets. Tata will offer a speedometer, odometer and a digital fuel gauge plus lights that are spartan, but complete instrumentation. But most importantly, the smoothly curved design, two huge cubby holes ensure that the cabin gets an airy feel, lots of storage and almost no one notices that there isn't a glove box at all. Neat, eh? The curved edges should also have a role to play in crash safety.
7. Filler cap and single mirror
The filler cap is actually located under the nose. It might be a little inconvenient to fill up, then, but remember, many people who drive CNG and LPG cars already do this. But on the cost front, this means that body does not need to a hole in it at someplace for the filler cap. Tata will probably also
not offer a standard left side mirror - we've never seen a car with it so far, not at the Expo, nor among the various test pieces running around Pune- which is another cost saving. It will be an optional extra should you really want it - and you should - but for a car this cheap, this is not an unreasonable compromise. After all, there are cars relatively more expensive that don't have it as standard either, right?
IV.The Factory factor
In the meantime, a queue of state governments formed to offer the Nano project. While Dharwad in Karnataka seemed to be winning, Gujarat bagged the Nano project. The new plant is expect to come at on 1100acres of land at Sanand in 2010. Tata will (re)spend Rs 2,000 Crore (Rs 20 billion) on the new plant. Located 45km from Ahmedabad, Sanand will be the new home of the project, making an estimated 250,000 cars per annum.
The movement of the plant will have a serious impact on the project in the short term. Had the plant been running at full capacity, Tata would have been making as much as 250,000 Nanos a year, scalable to 350,000 which would have been far better in the face of what is expected to be an unprecedented deluge of demand. With the Pune and Pantnagar plants only able to make a maximum of 5000 Nanos (our estimate), the queues for people who will book the Nano will be long and tortuous and for once, it will probably not be the manufacturer's fault.
Reports in the media already suggest that Tata will open bookings only for a month, and this window will close when one lakh bookings are done.
State Bank of India is reportedly the sole booking agent and while the actual down payment is not known - Rs 70,000 is being estimated or rumoured - you have to pay Rs 500 to register your booking. No one has ever done this with a car, as far as we know.
Industry estimates suggest that had Tata had their new plant on stream, the actual number of potential bookings could be as much as six times that figure!
V. Future powertrains
In the months of waiting from the time we have seen the first Nanos at the Auto Expo to now, Tata has offered a glimpse repeatedly into the future of Nano. Here is all the information on the powertrain front.
1. The 3-cylinder engine
Tata's plan for a three-cylinder engine for the Nano surfaced with the Nano Europa at Geneva 2009. The logic is pretty simple. The Europa is a bigger car than the Nano and will have far more mandatory equipment on board - ESP, Airbags, ABS etc. It will also have to run at significantly higher average and peak speeds than the Indian Nanos, which means a powerful motor, relatively speaking, becomes essential to the whole package.
Tata's 35PS 2-cylinder parallel twin, one must assume isn't going to cut it. Or, even if it did meet the requirement, the Nano team obviously thought something bigger would be nice.
In packaging terms, a three-cylinder parallel twin shouldn't add too much to the actual dimensions of the engine - although we would reckon that almost all of the extra length of the Nano, is being given over to the space the new motor needs. Perhaps the simplest solution, on the face of it, is an engine that isn't all-new, but an extension of the current motor. If that assumption, our assumption, is correct, that this should point to an engine of between 800-950cc, which should bring the horsepower count up to about 42-48PS. Which should give the heavier, bigger Nano just enough juice to hit 130kmph. Which is not an incidental top speed, it's the speed limit on most of Europes auto-routes.
2. The Diesel
Japan is actually the country famous for its small super-diesels. Their kei-jidosha (smallest car class) vehicles have always had 660cc engines or thereabouts, so a small diesel, in that sense isn't ground-breaking new technology. However, if we assume that Tata met the same resistant that they got when they were trying to outsource the development of their 624cc petrol twin, then the diesel would also have had to be setup in house. Again, the engine capacity isn't known, but it would be reasonable to assume a similar displacement, since the space to squeeze the motor is in limited.
Now, given the cost angle, we aren't expecting a common-rail motor, although truth be told, we would be over the moon to see one in the spec list.
However, if Tata have managed to extract good torque from the petrol engine, it should be able to atleast get 30-40 per cent more from the diesel, which is roughly the norm in similar sized petrols and diesels when they are shared on one model across manufacturers. Horsepower will probably not dip below the 35PS mark, in our estimation, and that should make the diesel Nano, dare we say it, a bit of a pocket rocket!
3. The Hybrid
This is very much the hot topic of the moment. There is intense speculation that the Tata Nano will have a hybrid version. If you think about it,perhaps the biggest problem for Tata, hybrid wise will probably be packaging, not implementation, technology or its application. A hybrid, whether series (car starts electric, uses motor to charge batteries only, or only when serious acceleration is needed) or parallel (electric motor supplements normal engine, but the motor is not actually charged - in most cases - directly by the normal engine), will give the Tata Nano incredible fuel economy. In theory, the world's cheapest car could also be the world's most fuel efficient production car! Now, the petrol engine fuel economy figure being bandied about seems to hover from 20 to 25 kpl. Even a mildly good hybrid arrangement should boost that figure by at least 20 per cent, which means 24 to 30kpl. Does that not sound good?
Like all hybrids do, the hybrid goodness of the Nano will come at a cost, and we expect that the Nano Hybrid, should it actually happen, will cost more than the fully-loaded petrol model even. At that price, it will become the cool, unobtanium Nano as it were. That, alone, we say, is a good reason to make it. Elitist variant of a popular car? Oh yes. Oh, and Tata's mileage claims and CO2 claims with the petrol engine already match or surpass famous hybrids like the Prius et al, just so you know.
4. Electric
Thanks to Tata's work with their Norwegian partner, Miljo (think Th!nk) on the Indica EV, this is an actual possibility. Tata will launch the Indica EV in Norway in September according to reports and the only reason they aren't brining the 200km to a charge car to India is the lack of infrastructure to support it. In time, this will come, and so should the electric Nano. There isn't any official word on this, so we'll stick our necks out one more time and say that the electric Nano is at least five years away - Tata will need the next 18-24 months or so just to stabilise the production and meet the demand for the petrol Nano. By that much time, hopefully, compact, high energy-density batteries and powerful motors should give the electric Nano performance comparable to or better than the incoming petrol Nano.
5. Air engine
Yes, Tata have been working with that quirky French firm, MDI, which has pioneered an engine that runs on compressed air. To understand more about how the engine works, please read the April 2009 issue of Overdrive. The upshot is that the engine runs more or less like a conventional engine in feel, but the fuel you put into the tank, literally, is air. If (When?) the Nano gets that engine, it will need a tiny amount of normal fuel for on-board air compression at best. This car, then, will be truly stonking, for it will drink almost nothing, produce fresh, totally pure air and cost next to nothing to run.
VI. Alternatives to the Tata Nano
For a lakh of rupees here are three alternatives to the Nano
Past sense
Think you can do better than getting a micro-miniaturized hatch for the same amount of money? Well you may not be too far from the truth.
The economic slowdown and rising interest rates have sent the second-hand market spiraling downward. All of a sudden, there are a host of options to choose from and don’t be surprised to find some incredibly sweet deals on cars you've always wanted to own.
Of course, used Alto prices will hit an all-time low and there's never a better time to pick up this car. Look out for the early 1.0 litre cars, which were absolutely delightful to drive. These will be even cheaper than a lakh of rupees. Other cars to look out for from the Maruti stable will be the older Zen and Wagon R. Don’t discount a tempting deal on the Zen Estilo even, which--though not under a lakh--will certainly be somewhere in that ballpark.
For a few thousand over a lakh, you can even get your hands on a fully loaded Santro. Again, the litre-class equation weighs heavily since several people want the additional power. Power steering, power windows et al and it could still be available for a little over a lakh.
But here’s the really juicy bit: second-hand dealers claim to be able to source Hyundai Accents, Ford Ikons and--if you are really patient--even a late 2000 or early '01 Honda City for just around a lakh and half, perhaps even lower. Now for a car that large, spacious and with very usable boot, the additional tens of thousands are fairly justified.
Bike now
Today, at a lakh of rupees you can buy some of the most fabulous motorcycles this country has seen in a long time. None of them have the utility a car can afford, but for sheer pleasure at that price nothing comes close. In today's market, buyers are spoiled for choice. Everything from commuter entry-level 100cc bikes to the exorbitantly priced and immensely powerful Ducati 1098R is available here in India.
The prime contender, if you're willing to forego a couple of wheels, is the Yamaha YZF-R15. This bike isn’t available at a lakh of rupees; the actual quotation can run up to nearly a lakh and a half by the time it steps onto the road. Yet, it is a motorcycle that has swept several awards including the IMOTY and Indian Performance Bike Of The Year. It has revived the fortunes of a company that had lost all hope of seeing a return to their '80s glory days. What makes it truly incredible is the fact that it showcases technological advances that make it the superior motorcycle amongst its peers even though it may not be the largest or most powerful.
It is a motorcycle that has completely redefined the Indian 2-wheeler segment and product capabilities by pushing itself to the very brink. It’s a quick yet comfortable handling god, and the fact that it looks as good as it does makes it a very alluring buy.
But then, you can also buy a Hero Honda Karizma or even an Apache RTR-Fi--both of which are highly focused on their tasks. Or you could buy a piece of nostalgia with the Royal Enfield Bullet, which despite being one of the oldest motorcycles of the same design in production, is still going as strong as ever. In fact, sales are on the up as newer technologies make their appearance in this motorcycle.
Future bright Bajaj Lite
At Auto Expo 2008, Bajaj showcased the Lite--a small four-seat concept, which it expects to price at $3000. That roughly translates to a 1.2 lakh rupee ex-showroom price--a bit hard to achieve in the current economic scenario. Nevertheless, Tata Motors has shown the way forward for cost-effective engineering and business practices. It is only natural for others to follow. Bajaj, for one, is certainly going to try hard to keep costs from spiraling, especially since they already excel at manufacturing cost-effective motorcycles. Those lessons learned on two wheels will help add two more to their ambitions.
The Lite is a cute car and the prototype unveiled at the Expo showcased a vehicle that will be inexpensive but not downright cheap. The design may not inspire lyrical verse, but it will get the job done and for developing countries, that is generally more than enough. If it can deliver at the right price, there will be few complaints. The Lite will accommodate four and provide a host of creature comforts. It will have a choice of both petrol and diesel powertains, likely not larger in capacity than a litre, possibly lower.
Bajaj could look at the variomatic transmissions it builds for its scooters to transfer power in the Lite, especially since Rajiv Bajaj claimed that the tranny would be something special and not a conventional manual or automatic gearbox. It will ride on small wheels and could share several mechanical components with other projects Bajaj is working on, namely a 4-wheeler LCV on the lines of the Tata Ace. Bajaj, being a predominantly two-wheeler manufacturer, will not make the Lite an alternative to the motorcycle or scooter. It would certainly not be healthy to take business away from itself. Instead, it aims to project the Lite as a step above the Nano, though not entirely beyond the means of the common man.
The Lite is supposed to be ready by early to mid 2011, and hopefully it will not face its own Singur. But in the current economic gloom, anything is possible, especially since Renault has announced a slowdown of its India plans, part of which is their association with Bajaj. In fact, if rumors are to be believed, then Bajaj has apparently gone back to the drawing board to start the project from scratch. And if that is the case, the Lite will certainly not be switched on in 2011.
