Are Nano cars faulty?
Tata Motors said it may undertake a
pre-emptive check on the 7,500-odd Nanos that have been delivered till date,
after a faulty combination switch in the world’s cheapest car resulted in fires
in at least three cases across the country.
Three cases of fire in the car had been reported in the past few days in Delhi,
Lucknow and Ahmedabad. There were no reports of injury or loss of life in any
of the incidents.
The country’s largest manufacturer of cars and trucks by sales, however, said
it was not considering a recall of the car for the time being. It said its
experts will check all the cars with customers, purely as a precautionary
measure. Unlike in the US and European car markets, recall of cars is not
mandatory in India, even in cases of technical faults.
“There seems to be some minor problem in the combination switch area. Of the
two cars that we have had access to, this caused smoke and localised melting of
plastic parts,” said Tata Motors spokesman Debashish Ray, who chose to play
down the incidents.
The company, which started delivering the Nano in July, said it was not
considering any re-engineering in the car despite the fact that the fires were
caused by a common problem in all the cases. The cars were stationary when the
fires were reported. Tata Motors has not started to export the car yet. It
refused to share the number of Nanos parked at its Pantnagar factory in
Uttrakhand and those with dealers.
The Nano, which is priced in the range of Rs 1.2 lakh to Rs 1.7 lakh in Delhi
(ex showroom), is the cheapest car in the world by a large margin.
|