Bookings for the world’s cheapest car are over for the first phase. Tata Motors is still counting the number of bookings received so far from various retail and banking outlets. The current booking numbers are expected to breach the 10 lakh mark which is a record in the history of Indian automobile industry. According to the Tata Motors’ official spokesperson, “The booking for the world's cheapest car Nano launched by the Tatas has ended but the numbers are still being counted.”
Most of the banks have also failed to reveal the actual number of bookings done by them. According to one of the websites offering online booking for Nano, they have made nearly 10,000 bookings 50 percent which were done by credit cards and 50 percent by cheque payments.
On the other hand, booking forms remained piled up at various dealerships and retail outlets. Dealers had expected a huge demand for the forms but some of the dealers have still got unsold forms piled up with them after the bookings have closed for the first phase. Dealers had purchased forms at Rs 250 from the company and sold to the customers at Rs. 300. Tata Motors spokesperson refused to comment on the issue of the unsold forms.
“We have no such issues from dealers on our table. Hypothetically, even if there were to be such an issue, it would be an internal matter of the company and dealers and need not be commented publicly,” said the Tata official. Most of the customers have stayed away from the bookings due to the uncertainty gripping the delivery schedule, unavailability of test drive and some confusion over the booking procedure.
According to the industry sources, most of the bookings received are for the mid and the top end model of Nano with only few people opting for the base model.
