Learning From Tata’s Nano Mistakes The cheapest road car in the world today is made in India. When it was introduced in April 2009, 1 lakh units could fulfill only 50% of the market demand. With 31 patents in design and 37 in technology, and the lowest emission levels among petrol cars in India, the Tata Nano was heralded as the start of an era. Yet, within a year and a half sales had dipped so much that in November 2010, the company barely managed to sell 500 units. Sales climbed steadily from that low point and within six months the monthly sales figure touched 10,000 units. But the initial euphoria seemed to be clearly gone. Studying the turbulent two-year journey of Tata Nano in the Indian markets, ASB faculty, Deepika G. co-authored a case study that was published in the August 2011 issue of Marketing Mastermind. Deepika worked with her colleague Sriram Rajann at the Indian Business School, Hyderabad to unearth fascinating Nano facts to develop th...