A London-based car company has dared to challenge Nano as the cheapest car. The new car will be 340-cc, two-seater at less than Rs1lakh! In addition, the dealers will also avail a lumpsum margin. The company EcoCa is seeking the Indian counterpart to design and market this car under the same brand. The company is hopeful that the Indian market seems to be lucrative for gaining good margin even at the lowest car.The move comes in the wake of some car makers inviting EcoCa to present some prototype cars with fuel efficiency and safety aspects and in this regard, the company’s top choice is M&M. but there is no word from M&M yet except that every prospect of developing the technology oriented products will be on consideration. EcoCa is concentrating both on domestic markets like India and the global ones.
EcoCa is an initiative with an investment of 8 million pounds under the inspiration of VW Beetle and the car will be built with convertible roof and automatic gearbox to relax from using the gears. The car weighs less 330kg (Nano weighs 635kg) with the strength of ABS plastic for good resistance to heat and chemicals. The car has the fuel efficiency of 27-28 km/lit of petrol (Nano gives 23.6km/lit) under standard test conditions. The car has the optional front airbags and cleared the front clash test in Europe, has the top speed of 70km/h (lower than Nano’s 103km /h).
The production of new chassis and body can be shelled at 24 hours of time under normal production process. The target for this car is 1800 per month to keep the price track. The price will come down further when the production volume increases. The analysts in industry feel optimistic that the Indian market is ideal for low cost cars, meeting the population volume.