Nano Superdrive-Journey so far

As you’re aware I’m on the road for past 10 days, driving across the country in a Tata Nano. We flagged off from Ahmedabad on June 2nd Evening and after covering Surat, Mumbai, Pune, Goa and Mangalore, we’re heading further south today, towards Cochin. I've been either busy updating the event blog and or tired/clipped by poor connectivity to update my main blog
The journey has been great so far. I could visit some of the prominent landmarks in each city, meet interesting people including Tata Motors officials, FM radio RJs, celebrities who are invited to flag off the rally in each city and the ever enthusiastic public. As a blogger I’m treated at par with any other media personnel would have been treated. With a ‘professional looking’ camera and Tata Nano T-shirt, people automatically open up for discussions, photos or videos.

While Superdrive might look like a bunch of people driving around in Nano, the Nano superdrive is much bigger exercise than I’d initially thought. Close to 300-400 people must be working on this assignment. While we’re around 10-12 member team driving on the south route, two other teams are covering west and north routes. Each route also has an event team which takes care of the mall displays, customer meets and other city specific activities. Then there’re dozens of Tata Motors officials, at different levels who are involved. They join us for a specific leg and fly back. A dedicated PR agency is active in promoting the event through media. In each city local media is invited to check out the car, they’re allowed to drive, photograph. Partner FM Radio channels are involved in spreading the message, selecting winners and give them a chance to drive. There’s a huge backend team which offers support-such as hotel bookings, permissions (say to photograph at particular place), various other arrangements. At each city local dealers support us in checking the vehicles, showing us around in city and guiding us till next destination. Lot of people from event management company, Shobiz and its affiliates ensure that everything goes on as planned. Everyone on board has his or her set of responsibilities, appropriate backup support, supervisor and escalation mechanism. Good amount of documentation and daily reporting is involved. Lots of people-both top down and bottom up-make several phone calls a day, just to ensure that everything is fine.

The Car has such has been above expectation. Many people didn’t have much expectations from a one lakh car and they still have that mind set that this car is not good enough. In terms of speed (we crossed 100kmph at times), space, pickup, fuel economy and value for money, almost everyone have a praise to say about Nano. We covered hills and bad roads (between Pune and Goa) and with 3-4 people on road, Nanos pulled it off without any difficulty. The Nanos we’re travelling have logged close to 2000 kms in past 10 days and so far there’s been no significant issues with the vehicle (can be attributed to the fact that each day cars are checked by the dealers in respective city. Would have been more challenging if it was non stop long journey). The 15 litre fuel tank makes us stop every 300 kms and for a family outing, luggage space can be little less. With a top speed of 100kmph you can’t compete with other cars, but this speed is decent enough for most of the practical requirements. 

Lot of people keep asking about the fire incident and on road price of Tata Nano Given that fire was one isolated incident out of 35000 Nanos that are on road, for the time being I believe that was one off incident. On road price of Nano ranges between 1.5 lakh to 2.2 lakh depending on variant, city etc. Booking is not open now. The new cars made at Sanand will be first delivered to those who’ve already booked and awaiting delivery. Sometime in August/September fresh bookings would open and shortly supplies are expected to be good enough so that you car drive out a Nano from showroom.
Below is a brief presentation prepared by Tata’s Mumbai office on the journey so far. Do check it out.

Tata nano superdrive the journey so far

We passed through my home town and my parents had great time in Nano. Pune, Goa and namma Kudla have been great cities. Visited Goa after some 15-20 years...We're done with Mangalore and will be heading further south today.

Stay tuned to the official event blog, http://superdrive-greenroute.blogspot.com/ for daily updates