The Ultra-Lite Car From Tata (TTM): Why Not For US?

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jan 10, 9:10AM EST

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It is easy to look at Tata’s (TTM) new mini-car, which will sell for $2,500 in India, and laugh. It is smaller than the Honda (HMC) Civics which came into the US in the 1970s.

Detroit laughed at the Civic as well, laughed itself sick.

The Tata "Nano" would not meet US emissions standards, but the engineers at Ford (F) and GM (GM) can make cars that run on H20, so why not fit a tiny engine with anti-pollutant technology?

US drivers are not going to take a wee car onto the interstate, but for the millions of people who commute to work, or just drive around town, a small car would be ideal Something that might get 100 mpg.

Could Detroit make money on such a vehicle? Perhaps not. But, it could buy a modified version from Tata.

Think of the advantages. If the car gets a flat tire, the drive can just pick the vehicle up and put it in his pocket.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.