Racemo marks Tata footprint in digital world

Racemo, a two-seater sports coupe from the Tata stable, made its debut at the 87th Geneva International Motor Show on Tuesday.

It was barely some weeks ago when Tata Motors introduced its new sub-brand, Tamo, positioned as an incubating centre of innovation for new technologies. The idea is to work on future mobility solutions in a low volume, low investment business model.

Racemo marks the beginning of this journey and the debut happens at a venue where Tata Motors has consistently participated for two decades now. It also reflects the journey of a company that made a dramatic shift to passenger cars in the late-1990s with the Indica.

Fast forward to the present where the Racemo has been touted as India’s first globally developed ‘phygital’ car, merging the physical and digital worlds. It will bring alive connected car features such as advanced navigation, predictive maintenance, remote monitoring and over-the-air updates using Microsoft cloud-based technologies.

According to Guenter Butschek, CEO & MD, Tata Motors, Racemo is the first innovation from Tamo and reflects the change happening at Tata Motors. The car is is built on a structural technology that allows greater freedom in surface design, efficient large-scale part integration leading to modularity and faster time to market. The company says this is being used for the first time ever in the automotive industry for passenger vehicles.

Racemo was designed at Tata Motors’ design studio in Italy. It is Tamo’s first digitally native car that will bring alive connected car features such as advanced navigation, predictive maintenance, remote monitoring and over-the-air updates. Going forward, Tamo will provide a digital ecosystem, which will be leveraged by Tata Motors to support the mainstream business.

From the company’s point of view, the automobile landscape has changed considerably over the years with new mobility challenges emerging in the form of the Ubers and Olas. In the process, people need a really good reason to buy a car instead of being bogged down with the pressures of ownership. It is here that Tamo will strive to make a difference in connecting with today’s youth who are passionate about new technologies.

More importantly, the idea is to work on niche solutions where volumes will not be humungous as in the traditional car business where considerable investments are also part of the exercise. Finding these gaps in mobility and being able to offer quick solutions from Tamo will be the way going forward even as this balances with Tata Motors’ focus in the mass passenger car segment. To that extent, the Racemo is a big leap forward and could pave the way for other interesting innovations, which could be used both in India and globally.

(The writer is in Geneva on an invitation from Tata Motors)

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