On March 23, 2009, India's Tata Motors launched the world's cheapest car, the Nano. Originally priced at $2,500, the strong dollar has effectively re-priced it at $2000. The launch was six-months behind schedule, and the company has a smaller production capacity than originally envisioned.
Wags in the skeptical Western press have greeted the news of the Nano with jewels like, "but, will it blend?" Comparisons with lawn mowers abound, and there is a great deal of concern about its crash-worthiness, emissions and even the ability of its single windscreen-wiper to deal with the monsoon. Such criticism misses the point: Nano's impact on the world is not about what it can't do, but what it can.
According to the World Resources Institute, the annual energy consumption per U.S. resident was about 340 million BTU (British Thermal Unit) in 2005. This number represents all energy consumption (industrial, residential, commercial, etc.), divided by the population. The average American consumes about twice the energy of the average European or Japanese, 10 times the average Chinese and about 25 times the Indian. Between them, China and India constitute about 40% of the global population and their low per-capita energy consumption is changing. Industrial activity was the first to move the graph. Now, there are massive highway construction and expansion programs enabling automobile proliferation in both of these countries. The Nano could well be the catalyst that pushes global emissions to completely unsustainable levels.
[via investwise, 4/9/09]
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