Opinion : We dont need Nano
India is in serious danger — no, not from Pakistan or internal strife. India is in danger from an Indian-made vehicle: a $2,500 passenger car, the world’s cheapest.
India’s Tata Motors recently announced that it plans to begin turning out a four-door, four-seat, rear-engine car for $2,500 next year and hopes to sell one million of them annually, primarily to those living at the “bottom of the pyramid” in India and the developing world.
Just as India went from no phones to 250 million cellphones — skipping costly land lines and ending up with, in many ways, a better and cheaper phone system than we have — it should try the same with mass transit.
Welcome to one of the emerging problems of the flat world: Blessedly, many more people now have the incomes to live an American lifestyle, and the Indian and Chinese low-cost manufacturing platforms can deliver them that lifestyle at lower and lower costs. But the energy and environmental implications could be enormous, for India and the world.
We have no right to tell Indians what cars to make or drive. But we can urge them to think hard about following our model, without a real mass transit alternative in place. Cheap conventional four-wheel cars, which would encourage millions of Indians to give up their two-wheel motor scooters and three-wheel motorized rickshaws, could overwhelm India’s already strained road system, increase its dependence on imported oil and gridlock the country’s megacities.
Yes, Indian families whose only vehicle now is a two-seat scooter often make two trips back and forth to places to get their whole family around, so a car that could pack a family of four is actually a form of mini-mass transit. And yes, Tata, by striving to make a car that could sell for $2,500, is forcing the entire Indian auto supply chain to become much more efficient and therefore competitive.
But here’s what’s also true: Last week, I was driving through downtown Hyderabad and passed the dedication of a new overpass that had taken two years to build. A crowd was gathered around a Hindu priest in a multicolored robe, who was swinging a lantern fired by burning coconut shells and praying for safe travel on this new flyover, which would lift traffic off the streets below.
The next morning I was reading The Sunday Times of India when my eye caught a color photograph of total gridlock, showing motor scooters, buses, cars and bright yellow motorized rickshaws knotted together. The caption: “Traffic ends in bottleneck on the Greenlands flyover, which was opened in Hyderabad on Saturday. On day one, the flyover was chockablock with traffic, raising questions over the efficacy of the flyover in reducing vehicular congestion.” That’s the strain on India’s infrastructure without a $2,500 car.
So what should India do? It should leapfrog us, not copy us. Just as India went from no phones to 250 million cellphones — skipping costly land lines and ending up with, in many ways, a better and cheaper phone system than we have — it should try the same with mass transit.
India can’t ban a $2,500 car, but it can tax it like crazy until it has a mass transit system that can give people another cheap mobility option, said Sunita Narain, the dynamo who directs New Delhi’s Center for Science and Environment and got India’s Supreme Court to order the New Delhi bus system to move from diesel to compressed natural gas. This greatly improved New Delhi’s air and forced the Indian bus makers to innovate and create a cleaner compressed natural gas vehicle, which they now export.
“I am not fighting the small car,” Ms. Narain said. “I am simply asking for many more buses and bus lanes — a complete change in mobility. Because if we get the $2,500 car we will not solve our mobility problem, we will just add to our congestion and pollution problems.”
Charge high prices for parking, charge a proper road tax for driving, deploy free air-conditioned buses that reach every corner of the city, expand the existing beautiful Delhi subway system, “and then let the market work,” she added.
Why should you care what they’re driving in Delhi? Here’s why: The cost of your cellphone is a lot cheaper today because India took that little Western invention and innovated around it so it is now affordable to Indians who make only $2 a day. India has become a giant platform for inventing cheap scale solutions to big problems. If it applied itself to green mass transit solutions for countries with exploding middle classes, it would be a gift for itself and the world.
To do that it must leapfrog. If India just innovates in cheap cars alone, its future will be gridlocked and polluted. But an India that makes itself the leader in both cheap cars and clean mass mobility is an India that will be healthier and wealthier. It will also be an India that gives us cheap answers to big problems — rather than cheap copies of our worst habits.
Thomas Friedman, NY Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize winning author of Lexus and the Olive Tree and From Beirut to Jerusalem
(12 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)
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I agree to the point. Adding to the mobility problem, now we can foresee the Parking problem too. This would occupy more than 2 scooters / bikes place and most of the Indian cities dont have good parking solution.
Few solutions:
1. Ban this vehicle on all Metros. Suburbans can have it, but they should not enter the city limits.
2. Sell this one in small towns and cities , mostly rural.
3. Levy heavy tax on this, and thus discouraging people indirectly, till any Mass transit is developed.
Who said, we do not need this car. This is People’s Car and so let people decide who will prove you wrong by their overwhelming support to this car and gratitude to TATA!
Tom (Thomas Friedman), let’s take a simple scenario. You have a middle-class family of 4 with 2 kids going to school. The Mom’s home and doesn’t drive. It’s raining and the father has to pick up the kids at 5. What would you do if you had the choice between picking up the kids on a motor-bike to a cheap car that can seat both of them comfortably, prevent them from breathing polluted air, keep them dry from the rain and keep them safe in case of an accident?
Please don’t teach us on how we need to leap-frog just because we’re going to suck up the oil and leave nothing for you to consume. The affordability of the car just gives millions of families to go out as a family who have been cutting corners to eke out a living. Infrastructure was always a problem why blame it only when a poor man’s car is being introduced. Look into your backyard, you can have high-speed rail links between major cities and curtails millions of cars getting on the highways. Talk of the ultra-rich oil barons who have a strong lobby and control the prices of gas with lame excuses and still are rich enough to buy countries like New Zealand.
If the Indian government has the will, it could pass resolutions to mandate metro railway plans in all major cities, have dedicated bus-lanes, de-congest main arterial roads and what not. It doesn’t, but the apathy of the government should not come at the cost of the happiness of a simple family wanting to go out together, enjoy a movie and come back home safe, together.
You might be well off writing about getting guns & drugs out of your schools and getting accountability of the useless war.
Well sanjeev I agree with what you say but middle class comforts at the cost of poor Singur farmers make no sense either?
If there would be problem with the traffic, atleast not to the current extent of how its in NewYork or London, why does’nt US and UK bans cars? Its always dependent on the affordability of people to acquire anything and now its getting easier for Indians to afford a better standard of living, just becos this is going to create a crunch on resources should we stop eating? In this world it has always been survival of the fittest, so lets fight with good spirits rather than back stabbing, did US come to help indian population who were suffering with low standards of living and poverty that we should care about them?
Also the new gimick of global warming is created by the developed countries to stop the developing countries from developing and creating a pressure on the available resources. US cannot ask openly anycountry (India or Brazi) to stop developments because it is causing a threat to their companies and economy, so they devised a new story “Global Warming” .
Can check some details on global warming at http://www.globalwarmingisfake.wetpaint.com.
We Indians should not give a damn to the shouts from these developed countries whos interest is to stop our development, they cant stand an fully independent Self sufficient India, hence they will always be creating hurdles in our development, like the recent denial of Australia for supply of Uranium.