Even the maker of India’s new $2,700 ride doesn’t call it a car
MUMBAI, INDIA — India has a new ultra-cheap small car. Well, sort of. The company that introduced it Tuesday, Bajaj Auto, best known for making motorcycles and motorized three-wheeled rickshaws, does not even refer to its newest product, the RE60, as a car. Bajaj prefers the generic term four wheeler.
Executives say they have no plans to market it to average consumers. Instead, they are aiming for drivers of rickshaws, which are powered by motorcycle engines and operate as short-distance taxis in India. The RE60 offers features not found on current rickshaw models, including seatbelts, doors and a hard top. The company did not say how much the RE60 would cost when it hits showrooms this year. But a rickshaw costs about 120,000 rupees, or $2,200, and one auto analyst estimated that the RE60 would be priced 25 per cent higher than that, or about $2,750.
But the RE60 was expected to be more than a souped-up rickshaw. It was widely anticipated as Bajaj’s answer to the Tata Nano. The Nano, which its maker, Tata Motors, introduced in 2009, was billed as a people’s car that would bring mobility to India’s masses. It sells for a list price of about $2,600. But the analyst, Hormazd Sorabjee, said the RE60 would pose no challenge to the Nano, which itself had attracted only a fraction of the buyers for which Tata had hoped because of production delays and safety concerns. “After seeing the RE60, you realize what a phenomenal achievement the Nano is,” said Sorabjee, editor of Autocar India, an automotive magazine. The RE60 “is nowhere near a full-sized car which the Nano is.” But executives from Bajaj suggested that was essentially the point — to make the best vehicle possible and not stretch to produce an engineering marvel that might not be suited to real-life conditions. Bajaj said the RE60, fitted with a one-cylinder, 200cc engine, would deliver 35 kilometres per litre, or 82 mpg, and have a top speed of 70 kilometres per hour, or 43 mph. At a news conference in New Delhi ahead of the Delhi Autoexpo, the country’s biggest car show, Bajaj told reporters that while he would be happy to sell the RE60 to consumers, his main target market was rickshaw drivers, who earn about $100 a month driving people short distances. In New Delhi, several rickshaw drivers expressed ambivalence about the RE60 on Tuesday afternoon, saying they did not see much benefit in upgrading to four wheels. Suran Singh, 40, who has been driving a rickshaw for 26 years, said doors and a hard top would help keep out the cold during the winter but would make him too hot in the New Delhi summers. “This is better to drive in hot weather because it’s cloth,” he said, pointing to the top of his green and yellow rickshaw. “In Delhi, it gets hot in the summer, and we’ll be sweating it out in a car.” New York Times