Nano has always been a burning issue for Tata Motors. With two cars going up in flames, the company must prove its customer focus now
By all accounts, March 21 was an uneventful muggy Mumbai summer’s day. Steaming traffic jams were spread thickly over the city roads. Most people were sweating it out in BEST buses. Nutan Sawant was not one of them. That day she was in a car. For as long as she could remember, she had travelled on those lifelines of Mumbai: Local trains and buses. And then in October 2009, her husband Satish heard about the launch of the Rs. 1-lakh people’s car. “Last year after Diwali, I thought we could afford a small car,” he says. He was so keen that he jumped the queue by paying Rs. 15,000 to a Concorde Motors employee. March 21 was when they had to collect it. Satish and his wife went to the Concorde showroom at 10 a.m. Since Satish didn’t know driving, Concorde arranged for a driver. It was a great feeling for Nutan and Satish. They relaxed in the spacious rear seat as it glided through the tree-lined roads of Prabhadevi. They had travelled 15 kilometres when Nutan sniffed, turned towards Satish and asked the Rs. 2.26-lakh question: “Do you smell something burning?”
First Fires: In a Smoke Cloud
We got this explanation checked by another automotive expert working a large automotive company. “It is also possible in many cases that the banjo bolt case that the actual assembly of the part was not done right, that is wiring too close to a ‘hot’ part, or an improper connection, or the clip may not have been installed correctly,” he says.
Let’s face it: Tata Motors began the transition from making trucks to passenger cars in the last decade and a half. Most importantly, suppliers have to also go through that learning curve. “You need rigorous process and you need people who will follow the process. Indians revel in jugaad, and getting things done at the last minute,” says a former employee.
(This story appears in the 21 May, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)