The Tata Nano was big news back when it was released in 2008 because it was the world’s cheapest new car. Converted from Indian rupees to American dollery-doos, the Nano initally cost only $2,500, which is a remarkable achievement. That’s cheaper (adjusted for currency and inflation) than other famously cheap cars like the Ford Model T and Volkswagen Beetle. It was an engineering triumph. Unfortunately, because humans aren’t rational, the Nano never sold as well as expected, because even the people who would have benefited the most from the Cheapest Car in the World didn’t want to be seen in the Cheapest Car in the World.
It wasn’t rational, but since when have cars been rational? Never, that’s when.
But here’s the thing: there is still, as we speak, in production right now, an Indian vehicle that is about as cheap as the Nano was, with a design not dissimilar to the Nano, but one that has not gotten nearly the same sort of global attention that the Nano did. It’s the Bajaj Qute.
Sure, the name’s pretty silly, but this is a car I have a ton of respect for. Like the Nano, this is a rear-engine/rear drive four-door, four-seat passenger car with some luggage space at the rear, and, in the case of the Qute, a bit in the nose, too. It starts at about ₹ 2.84 Lakh, which translates to about $3,300 in American Freedom money. That’s shockingly cheap, and it even comes in gasoline or compressed natural gas (CNG) variants. It has a 216.6 cc engine (the decimal is important) making just over 13 horsepower and about 14.5 pound-feet of torque. It gets about 87 mpg, too!
These are more of a car and more usable than something like my Changli is, and I was using my Changli for all sorts of stuff. This is a viable transportation tool.
So, how is it that the Qute has survived since its production started in 2019 (it was announced back in 2012) with essentially the same price and specs as the Nano (well, the Nano had a good bit more power) when the Nano couldn’t get anyone to buy them? I think the key here is to whom these are being sold, and how they’re classified.
You see, the Nano was sold as a personal car for anybody; the Qute is being sold only for commercial use like taxicabs, where it’s a replacement for the ubiquitous three-wheeled autorickshaws that buzz all over India, vehicles that have always been Bajaj’s staple offering. It’s also classified as a quadricycle, not exactly a full car, and that comes with a mandated top speed of about 45 mph.
I don’t really think that technically there’s all that much difference between the Nano and the Qute; the Nano is a bit bigger and more powerful, but really, they’re pretty damn close. I think the Qute has been quietly successful because it has a niche that is less status-conscious than a personal car is, and it represents a step up from the most common members of its niche, three-wheel autorickshaws.
I think the Qute doesn’t get nearly the recognition it deserves; the production numbers aren’t huge, but they’re not bad, also, and the ratio of domestic sales in India to exports is really surprising: about 3,253 have been sold in India, while over 30,000 have been exported! That’s a lot! The biggest markets for the Qute seem to be Turkiye, Ghana, Egypt, Guatemala, and Mexico. Just this past year, exports have jumped by 112%!
According to this source, 29 of these were imported into the U.S. between 2022 and 2023! Who has all these Qutes? Where are they? Will anyone let me drive one? I’m so curious!
I respect the hell out of this little, minimal car. And yes, it is a car, no matter how it’s classified or whatever. A small car, sure, a cheap car, definitely, a car where every corner has been cut, no question, but it is absolutely a car.
I really respect that they gave it a usable little front trunk. The Nano didn’t really have that, and even expensive EVs that are sold globally often neglect doing this, so I hope VW and BMW and other bigshots feel a little ashamed when they look at that picture up there.
They don’t even seem all that fragile, which makes sense to me, having been to India and seen the conditions required for a car to thrive. A car, even a cheap car, doesn’t have the luxury of being delicate or poorly built in India. Even the crappiest-seeming little workhorse trucks or whatever have to meet a certain level of toughness just to survive. And the Qute seems to do just that.
You can sort of get a sense of this, even accounting for the deception of movie magic crap, by these clips of the Qute in a 2022 movie that I’ve somehow never heard of, despite starring such huge names as Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock and Harry Potter, The Lost City. They seem to work a Qute pretty hard, which may be the best reason to even see this movie:
Confusingly, I’ve seen a couple of ads that seem to pitch the Qute as a private family car, so perhaps the quadricycle designation allows it to be used in that capacity, and not just as a taxi or for-hire car? I suppose so, because that’s certainly the case here:
It’s pretty fun to watch that thing weaving around those narrow streets, like a blood cell traversing capillaries.
Here’s a commercial for its more intended use, as an Uber car:
I know I’m usually in the minority here, but I’d love to see a class of cars like this in America. The idea of a dirt-cheap and efficient and safe-enough (for non-highway travel) tiny city car just seems to make a lot of sense. This thing could probably cover 75 to 90% of what most people use a car for on a daily basis, I bet.
I have nothing but respect for this little car. Somehow, it has quietly managed to do what the Nano couldn’t quite pull off, and I hope lots more of these little things sell all over the world, and, yes, maybe even in the U.S. I’m not entirely certain how the Qute has managed to avoid the status trap the Nano fell into, except perhaps because nobody is making quite as big a deal out of the low price as they were with the Nano? These things don’t always make sense, but I think this little car sure does.
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