Would you mind owning a TATA car?

Well, this question is for the people of India living in the middle-class, upper-middle class and the ’sufficiently well-off’ economy bracket – the rich and the super-rich wouldn’t even consider this question.

I work for an IT company with thousands of employees; with 4-level parking space that can accommodate about 2500 to 3000 cars. I park my car in any one of these three levels, depending on when I report to work, which is between 7:30 AM to 8:30 AM or 10:30 AM to 11:30 AM flexi-time slots.

One day, as usual, when I parked my car in the second-level basement, I was up to something very strange. I was glancing at and scanning the rows of red, white, black, silver, blue and bottle green painted cars gleaming under the bright fluorescent lamps – AND counting the number of TATA cars that I could spot in 5 rows. Being a market analyst, I was a little shaken by the negligible number of TATA cars in all of the four rows that I considered. There must be some reason behind this, but what’s that?

I wanted to do a small informal survey to contain my curiosity, and the best starting point is none but ME. I will never comment on a product without having a good look of it myself; and luckily it happened like one of the dealers of TATA cars (also now for Fiat!) landed at our IT park to woo the prospective buyers. They had two cars displayed-the Tata Indica Vista Quadrajet and Fiat Palio Multijet (MJD), and ready for a test ride too. I’ve already test-driven the Palio MJD and I know its pros and cons. One thing that stands out in the Palio is the build quality; also the superb suspension and stability it offers. The quality of the interiors, though not outstanding, is very much acceptable.

I wanted to test drive the new Indica Vista, but there were too many wanting to test drive the same, and I was not ready to wait for 40 minutes to get behind Vista’s wheels. Anyways, I was curious to sit inside the car and close the door – a hollow flimsy thud that made me connect immediately with the heavy reassuring thud of the Fiat’s doors. Also, the internal plastic quality, though it looked good, did not feel good. They do have a real-cheap-plasticky feeling – nah! not good for a car that costs a little over 5 lakh rupees (half-a-million INR!!). Well, these things may be trivial, and the car might be functionally good – but I’ve an eye on these things as well. If this could be the quality levels of the newest car out of TATA’s stable, I can only imagine how their older generation cars felt like inside. Of course, I have traveled in quite a few Indica cabs, and the experience is nothing worth writing about.

Anyways, coming to the informal survey, I framed the following questions, and handed them out to my colleagues, putting the sample space at 47 (including myself!):

1. What car do you own right now? – car model and year of manufacture
2. What will be your next car?
3. To many, owning a particular model/type of car shows their status. Do you think owning a TATA car is a bit condescending as a status symbol? Options given – yes, no, don’t care
4. If there is a chance, what will make you go for a TATA car in the future? – where do you think TATA cars can improve upon?

For the first question, I wasn’t surprised to see a similar scenario that I encountered in the parking lot. Just TWO had TATA cars – so, about 4%!! The rest were Maruti Suzukis, Hyundais, and of course a couple of Chevrolets!! All of the 47 people had bought their cars just after 2004, so I needn’t have to worry about pre-2000 models – the time when TATA just entered the market.

For the second question, none of them wanted a TATA car. Bad..too bad!!

Third question – 35 voted YES, 7 voted NO and the rest DON’T CARE. So, 74% of them considering ‘TATA as a car brand is a bit condescending‘ is something serious. This reminds me of the Americans’ love for their home grown brand – General Motors!

The last question – 100% pointed that TATA’s can improve on quality – build quality and interior quality. Do you know how Toyota invaded the American automobile market? Some salient points that were observed were about QUALITY and the employee-employer relationship, and how they were directly related to improving the overall quality of the product.

Will TATA succeed in changing the current perception about their cars? I think it’s time for TATA to learn a lot from FIAT. What do you think?

Tags: Cars, fiat, hyundai, indica, indica vista, informal survey, maruti, palio mjd, palio multi-jet, quality, status symbol, survey, TATA

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