[volkman10]

Tatas shelves plan to introduce diesel variant of Nano.

With customers shifting to lower priced petrol cars and prices of diesel going up all the time, Tata Motors has found the diesel variant to be unviable, especially confirming to the BS IV emission norms.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/...w/33792536.cms

[GrammarNazi]

We could've had an excellent Diesel city car (although many of use it on highways too), TATA even gave us an excellent ownership experience, the concept of Nano is unparalleled.

Yet people defamed it, heckled TATA Motors based on hearsay, didn't give it the chance it deserved. All this while Maruti goes along selling 26,000 units a month of its comparatively CRAP Alto800.

What rationality! Kudos to the great Indian consumer. R.I.P. Nano Diesel.

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by GrammarNazi

We could've had an excellent Diesel city car (although many of use it on highways too), TATA even gave us an excellent ownership experience, the concept of Nano is unparalleled.

Yet people defamed it, heckled TATA Motors based on hearsay, didn't give it the chance it deserved. All this while Maruti goes along selling 26,000 units a month of its comparatively CRAP Alto800.

What rationality! Kudos to the great Indian consumer. R.I.P. Nano Diesel.

IMO, good move. Cut the losses and instead of flogging dead meat, concentrate on developing newer gen, better products.

With this diesel engine option and also the proposed AMT box/PS for the Nano, it would have been a perfect city runabout. But the kind of image Nano has developed over the years, it would have been very difficult to market it for 4-5 lakhs.

OT: Nano flopping is more of TATA's own doing rather than people conspiring against it. Remember the hype there was before the launch? That kind of hype is sure to get you a good start - TATA killed all that with the stupid lottery system.

[Viju]

Really don't believe that Nano Diesel has been shelved. Last Friday, when I was driving down to Kerala, saw the Nano Diesel being tested (probably by Bosch test engineers) on the Coimbatore L&T highway.

There was no camouflage. The car was in a new shade of grey, had black alloy wheels and clearly had a hatch opening lever. It sported red MH registration test vehicle plates.

I was doing around 90 kph when the Nano was still comfortably ahead of me. There were 3 guys inside and probably the driver noticed that I was curious. He floored the pedal and with a puff of black smoke from the exhaust, the vehicle effortlessly surged ahead and was definitely doing 120 kph or above.

When I took out my phone and gave it to my co-passenger to try and take a video / photograph, they noticed it and immediately pulled over to the side of the road.

[hothatchaway]

I think it makes sense, am no expert on automotives but the Nano (and its brethren the Alto, Eon) IMO is too compact a car with its clear positioning as a city car to have qualified for a diesel mill. Apart from diesel prices (which is steadily going north) there was no value proposition for an oil burner in a Nano and predictably this has been shelved. The Nano can still make a compelling case as a good city runabout as the 2nd car by retaining its competitive price position. Anything more in terms of more power etc pits them against an unwinnable war with the Japanese/Koreans

[aditya79india]

It wouldnt make much sense to shelve the project just for BS4 cost reasons. Introduction timeline of BS4 norms has been well known to the automobile industry. So this would have been factored in during the R&D stage of the engine itself. Most probably Tata is waiting for others to launch diesel in smaller cars and time their launch near abouts.

[racer_ash]

Wow. Its been more than 5 years that this thread was started. Lots of speculations and lots of fistfights. But looks like the Nano CRDi is shelved based on some previous posts. Now all that is needed is an official press release from Tata Motors to confirm this news.

Originally Posted by Viju

the vehicle effortlessly surged ahead and was definitely doing 120 kph or above.

Whoa! Were these guys conducting a speed test on public roads. I ddnt know that the Nano is capable of such speeds. I am not even sure if it is built for such speeds. Maybe they had Pete'D this thing

[Dry Ice]

Originally Posted by Viju

... the vehicle effortlessly surged ahead and was definitely doing 120 kph or above.

Originally Posted by racer_ash

Whoa! Were these guys conducting a speed test on public roads. I ddnt know that the Nano is capable of such speeds. I am not even sure if it is built for such speeds. Maybe they had Pete'D this thing

I thought the Nano had a speed limiter - which cuts off the supply over 90 or 100 kmph. Isn't it so?

Or maybe they would have removed it to test the limits first and then set a limiter.

[k_nitin_r]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

I thought the Nano had a speed limiter - which cuts off the supply over 90 or 100 kmph. Isn't it so?

Or maybe they would have removed it to test the limits first and then set a limiter.

If you exceed 100 km/hr in a Tata Nano, the Check Engine light glows on the dashboard. I recall seeing a YouTube video of a Nano doing about 110 km/hr, so I don't think they have a speed limiter to enforce a limit of 90 or 100 km/hr on the speedometer.

Also, the OP's description of the Nano he saw seemed to indicate that it isn't a typical Nano - a regular Nano wouldn't be able to go from 90 to 120 quickly.

[swiftnfurious]

Originally Posted by Dry Ice

I thought the Nano had a speed limiter - which cuts off the supply over 90 or 100 kmph. Isn't it so?

Or maybe they would have removed it to test the limits first and then set a limiter.

Originally Posted by k_nitin_r

If you exceed 100 km/hr in a Tata Nano, the Check Engine light glows on the dashboard. I recall seeing a YouTube video of a Nano doing about 110 km/hr, so I don't think they have a speed limiter to enforce a limit of 90 or 100 km/hr on the speedometer...

Nano (petrol) has a fuel supply cut off at 105 kmph IIRC. The diesel might NOT have it though. I hope they may have a bigger size tyre too, in that case.

[Bhargava]

Originally Posted by hothatchaway

I think it makes sense, am no expert on automotives but the Nano (and its brethren the Alto, Eon) IMO is too compact a car with its clear positioning as a city car to have qualified for a diesel mill. Apart from diesel prices (which is steadily going north) there was no value proposition for an oil burner in a Nano and predictably this has been shelved. The Nano can still make a compelling case as a good city runabout as the 2nd car by retaining its competitive price position. Anything more in terms of more power etc pits them against an unwinnable war with the Japanese/Koreans

Although the prices of diesel are going up, diesel is still cheaper than petrol, by a considerable margin. More importantly, the diesel engines, especially the turbocharged ones are way more fuel-efficient than petrol engines.

I don't think TML has ditched the Diesel Nano, they might just have put it on hold, until the time is right.

[condor]

Nano Diesel may be dropped ? - as we saw in the news item here on TBHP from Jan 2014:



http://www.rediff.com/business/repor...t/20141117.htm

[hellmet]

Time for Nano EV, then! Could compete with the (highly priced) Reva, maybe?

[GrammarNazi]

Since the speculation started early this year, I have always wondered why Tata Motors suddenly dropped the Diesel, and suspiciously, around the same time Maruti seems to've surprisingly come up with an 800cc diesel mill to power the Eeco & Celerio (and some "Y9K" Tata Ace competitor).

Could it be that Tata sold the tech to Maruti ?

Tata definitely needed the dough as to revamp the aging product line-up and the finances aren't amazingly great to fund such expensive projects. Maybe the earnings were used as a stimulus, so they could atleast start off with the Zest & Bolt ?

And making the sales numbers for Nano grow was getting harder by the day. With no decent numbers assured (like ~12k+ units), it might have seemed like beating a dead horse by giving a diesel heart to the Nano. A car for which the petrol engine itself was considered / labelled LOUD.

Not sure. Just exploring a possibility. I even think its quite probable this was done.

[srishiva]

I think they need to concentrate on pure electric technologies. For such a big corporation, for not even to release a working concept undergoing testing, its sad.