Tata Motors suspends production at Sanand

Tata Motors has suspended production at its Sanand plant, which rolls out the Nano. It is learnt that the production has been stopped for a month to make the necessary changes in the manufacturing line for a new small car and also to avoid adding to the already high inventory level of the Nano.

Till a couple of weeks ago, the Nano plant was producing the Nano Twist – the car’s refreshed version with a power steering. A senior company official confirmed that the company was producing only the Twist, at a press conference recently. The official also said that currently around one-third, and a half in some cases, of the Nano’s sales comes from the Twist variant. The Twist, with a price difference of less than Rs 20,000 over the LX variant, is seen as a good value-for-money proposition and fits well with the company’s strategy to reposition the Nano as a smart city car.

Dealer sources say that many prospective Nano customers, especially of the LX variant, opt for the Twist instead. They also say that the standard variant has been discontinued and there’s discount of up to Rs 45,000 on the CX variant.

While the Twist is helping the Nano in its repositioning, the other variants are driving slow in the market. An industry source told Autocar Professional that Tata Motors has reduced the inventory of the Nano significantly over the past year but still has an unsold inventory of around 7,000 units in the market. This translates to over three months of sales.  The Nano currently sells around 2,000 units a month. 

When contacted, a Tata Motors spokesperson said, “We cannot give a break-up on the Nano sales and inventory levels but suffice it to say that we map our inventory levels with the market dynamics.” But in order to change the market performance dynamics of the Nano, there are at least a couple of new variants to strengthen its ‘smart city car’ positioning. One of them may be launched by this year’s festive season.