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Tata Nano: the "Big" wonder
It's a car that has made history. On January 10, while a select few thousand watched the unveiling of the Nano - the People's Car, a million more around the world saw it on the internet or read about it in newspapers the next day; and it continues to make headlines.
A few weeks after the unveiling, however, its business as usual at the Engineering Research Centre (ERC) at the Tata Motors plant in Pune. Here is where it all began and here is where the Nano team, after the euphoric unveiling, is now quietly gearing up for the next phase: putting the Nano on the road.
"The execution of the project is the real challenge", says the self-effacing Girish Wagh, who heads the 500-strong Nano team. "While we are happy and proud at the reception received by the Nano, we also know that we have a long road ahead." This statement sums up the Nano team philosophy.
It was an incredibly tough journey - filled with challenges, questions, detours and self-doubts. But the Nano team developed and delivered a car that exceeded the world's expectations beyond their dreams.
The team, as one, acknowledges the tremendous support and guidance from Mr Ratan Tata, Mr Ravi Kant, Mr Prakash Telang and the senior management. Mr Tata, they say, not only brought a sense of cohesiveness, but also provided a number of vital inputs - information, guidance, encouragement and the motivation to keep looking at innovation.
As we spoke to some of the members of the Nano team, about their 4-year long journey, we sensed the excitement and the pleasure of a job well done; and the never-say-die spirit of the enthusiastic young team as they gear up to face the challenge of launching the car.
But let's start at the beginning
In 2003, a four-member team from Tata Motors was asked to work on a new project. The brief was very fluid. "It began as an advance engineering project. The idea was to try and create a very low cost transportation with four wheels - it was not even defined as a car," says Nikhil A Jadhav, industrial designer, INCAT, who has been working on the project since inception.
"What was defined was the cost: Rs1 lakh, about $2500 (at the time the smallest car cost around Rs2.5 lakh), without compromising on aesthetics, value to the customer, or safety and environment requirements, says Jai Bolar, senior manager (development), ERC, and a member of the initial team. The project was a Herculean challenge indeed... |
The road less travelled
The design team first looked at alternative ways of constructing a vehicle. Many concepts were explored and inspiration was sought from existing small cars.
The team also debated whether doors were necessary, whether plastics could be used instead of metal, whether interiors could be cut to a minimum, whether a low powered engine would suffice. The focus was always the cost factor and so different technologies were tried. But one question was a consistent driving factor: 'What is the bare minimum a customer will accept'."
While it was sure that the design could never go down the auto rickshaw route, the team looked at other concepts: a door-less car with a bar as a safety measure, having soft doors in vinyl with plastic windows, a cloth roof, two big doors (instead of four). But all these kept getting turned down by Mr Tata; he was very clear that it had to be a complete car. "In hindsight, after seeing the kind of joy people got by looking at the Nano, we see how important it was to have a complete car," says Mr Jadhav.
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Body building
Various themes were explored which set the styling direction, with inputs from the Institute of Development in Automotive Engineering, Italy. Differently shaped headlights, larger and more vertical, were designed giving the front of the car the appearance of a little kid, with big eyes in a small face. But Mr Tata asked them to try something different. Horizontal rear lamps were tried out before the vertical lamps (much like the Indica) were finalised.
While the constant design changes were frustrating, it also added to the interest factor, feels Mr Jadhav. "If you look at the early renderings of the car, it has metamorphosed into something completely different. But we were always kicked with the fact that in spite of the changes, the car never looked ordinary and boxy. The basic shape and size of the car was always very nice, especially after the lamps changed. In fact that was the point when my interest came back from 70 per cent to 100 per cent."
A feature of the new Indica - a spine on the bonnet - was added to the Nano and that changed the front volume and the car started looking more interesting. As the team put it, "It was just a smile in the beginning and the spine accentuated that. That was an important point where the car really started looking nicer; not just a plain car or just another car." The overall shape was developed keeping in mind that this car had to feel large; the wheels at the corner accentuate the car and give an interesting graphic on the road.
There was an interesting debate on the bottom end of the glass: there was an inclined wedge till the doors and then a step-up at the quarter window which was tied-in with the bonnet line. But the design team kept debating with Mr Tata where the line should be. They thought that the kickup added a lot of character, but he felt that it reduced the length of the car and asked them to extend it along the lines. This made the car look longer.
In the last week of July 2007, just when the team thought it had it all together and could begin work on the virtual phase, there was one more hiccup. Mr Tata felt that the nose of the car looked snub; while the team felt that the nose gave the car a sportier look. But they went back and did some renderings to increase the nose; it actually helped increase the length of the car as well as internal volume.
The new design was presented to Mr Tata, at the end of August as a virtual model, and immediately received his sign off. "And that's the car you saw in Delhi," concludes Mr Jadhav with a smile.
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More beautiful on the inside
The design work on the interiors of the car was even more interesting with maximum scope for innovation. Here again the focus was on cost reduction, but without compromising on the comfort factor. The directive from Mr Tata was that the customer has to perceive value. So there was a constant tussle in balancing value to customer and cost to company.
The styling was focused on comfort and functionality. "The inside volume was quite large and we were always faced with the challenge that with so much space if we reduce things, it will actually look like there are less things. So we tried to integrate functionality in components. It may cost a little more but you are getting two functionalities at the cost of one," says Siva S Aittili, manager (Industrial Design), ERC.
According to him, the exteriors define the character of the car but the interiors drive the user experience. "It's when a person sits inside the car and experiences the comfort and ambience, that he gets the final overall feeling about the car," he explains. So every detail was benchmarked with a luxury or best-in-segment car and the thinking took a different route to manage within the costing.
Working closely with the sourcing team led to many interesting inputs on what was possible and what was not. The driving instrument cluster is uniquely placed in the centre, giving the car an open look and enabling everyone in the car to look at it. It also makes the dashboard equally amenable to left hand and right hand driving. Initially the cluster was a simple circular shape; then Mr Tata suggested the shape be changed to an ellipse like the Tata logo.
There was a lot of exploration in terms of colours. "We looked at harmony in the colours for the dashboard, the door trims and the seats, to give a good feeling to the customers," says Mr Aittili.
The seating also went through a lot of concept changes with the team and Mr Tata looking at furniture catalogues for inspiration. Frames with tensile fabrics were thought of, but were rejected as too expensive. The final choice was a conventional looking seat with a structure made of metal and the headrest integrated with the seat to save on costs.
The team also wanted the wheels to look different but alloy wheels were too expensive. The final design is called stylein- steel wheels - a concept that looks like alloy but is made of pressed steel; and the cost is almost the same as a normal steel wheel. Other interesting and unique concepts include a central exhaust and the scoop (air way) required to cool the engine, which became part of the design, part of the door feature.
Now that the car has been unveiled, Mr Jadhav and Mr Aittili are fine-tuning the details, listening to feedback and working on it. And after that: "We will begin work on taking this to the world in a whole different way" |
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