Ratan Tata on Frugal Innovation

The Nano, launched in 2008 as a sub-one-lakh-rupee people's car, was his most visible solo bet: an attempt to create a new price point at the bottom of the car market whose commercial underperformance relative to expectations became a widely studied case of the gap between engineering ambition and market acceptance.

He has spoken of the Nano as motivated by the safety of Indian families on two-wheelers rather than by the headline price point alone, reframing what observers read as a low-cost car as a safety-and-access proposition that the market ultimately did not reward at the intended volume.