today

Tata may also make the proposed Rs 1 lakh car abroad Gets proposals from firms to make car in other countries. 1 lakh is 100,000 rupees, and there are about 80 rupees to £1 so the car is going to be a little more than £1000.00. It will almost certainly look and drive OK. Jeremy Clarkson said the last Tata car was crap, but after all Clarkson's views, especially on very cheap new cars, tend to be crap as well as the cars he pans which often are not so bad for the money, and what can you expect for £1000. Suzuki say "it can't be done" to the highly ecological specification.

But, is India the new Japan ? Democracy is probably stronger in India than in Japan and democracy certainly does not properly exist at all in China. Would you rather buy a good cheap car at lowest price from a good democracy, a more expensive car from a slightly dodgy democracy, or a car from somewhere that is not a democracy and is peddling nukes where it fancies ? (omit USA from the answer). Personally I'd be frugal.

IMO: It all sounds a bit like what the US used to say about Japanese cars and now the Japs have practically put US carmakers out of business. Kirk Kerkorian, once a major GM shareholder (till the last week or so) for example seems to have given up on US cars in disgust, and ordinary US workers at car plants often feel far worse about it now than that. I wonder what they think in Flint, Mich ? "Let down" seems a fair answer. And in the UK at least there would have been impetus to find them work locally. In India, Tata would have helped them greatly. I know.