The Hindu Business Line : Tata Motors' Rs 1 lakh car may cost more

Comfortable ride
Mr Ravi Kant promised consumers a "good looking car which is very comfortable to drive" and said prototypes are currently being tested within the facilities.

Pune , Nov. 9

The much-talked about Rs 1 lakh car from Tata Motors will cost more than that, thanks to inflation and the upward spiral in prices of raw materials including steel and rubber.

The company will, however, try to keep the prices as close to the figure as possible, the Tata Motors Managing Director, Mr Ravi Kant, told reporters here.

"Somebody mentioned the one lakh figure three years ago, but is it possible to keep it at that level considering inflation and price rise in raw materials? Also, what will the situation be on these fronts two years from now?," he said, responding to a query on the company maintaining the promised price line.

Mr Kant, however, promised consumers a "good looking car which is very comfortable to drive" and said prototypes are currently being tested within the facilities, suppliers being short listed and orders placed for components. "We hope to launch on schedule in 2008," he said adding that the car has been styled in-house by the company with a team of design associates.

To formalise MoU

Tata Motors and Italian car manufacturer Fiat, meanwhile, are likely to formalise the existing memorandum of understanding into a joint venture within the next couple of months and the fine-tuning of the agreement is currently in process, Mr Kant said here on Friday.

While the two companies will jointly work on manufacturing cars and power trains, Fiat is in no way collaborating on Tata's one lakh project, Mr Kant said.

Meanwhile, the company is still tiding over the crisis in production due to arising out of the fire in the car paint shop just before Diwali. Mr Kant said that there is still a shortage in production despite putting in place its brand new paint shop of the Ace and Fiat's Kurla paint shop to use for painting its cars. "We expect things to normalise within a month," he said.

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