Tata Motors Unveils The Nano Car

India’s Tata Motors has unveiled its super-compact Tata Nano, a $2,230 car that gets 55 miles per gallon and is being marketed as a 4-wheeled vehicle for people now driving around India and the developing world on 2-wheeled scooters. Tata, which says its Nano will bring the convenience of the automobile to the masses, will begin taking orders for the Nano next month and plans to deliver the first cars to customers in July. Business analysts say other automakers — including Honda, Hyundai, and a partnership between Renault and the Indian scooter maker, Bajaj — will be closely watching the fate of the Nano as a sign of whether they should jump into manufacturing cheap, compact vehicles. Tata Motors and Nano boosters say the car will enable families to quit transporting 2 to 3 people on unsafe and highly polluting scooters. But environmentalists fear that the introduction of the Tata Nano will further clog overcrowded roads in the developing world. Critics also lament that Tata chose to produce a car with an internal combustion engine rather than an electric motor.