Tata Nano

I think the Tata Nano looks like a damn cool machine. I love simplicity as a general design principle and something as stripped down as that strikes me as particularly beautiful in a sense, even if it's not really the most beatiful thing on the surface. Plus, just the idea of a $2,500 car strikes me as being very awesome.

I will be curious to see how it sells and spreads in India and other developing countries. While it doesn't look suitable for the requirements of the U.S. market, I suspect most of the design principles of the Nano could be used to build a $4,000 to $5,000 car for the U.S. market. Given the way the economy is going, that might just be a more useful thing than it would have seemed to be a year or so ago . . . Generally, I like the idea of something like this spreading and I think it eventually will.

Now, if they can combine something like that with some hybrid technology, maybe they could create a (plug-in?) hybrid with super-high gas mileage at less than $10,000! Or maybe even a long-range electric vehicle . . . That would rock!

In the meantime, I'll keep reading the hybrid blog and see what develops . . . Maybe I should look at buying some Tata Motors stock! Might be a good buy right now . . .