Tata Comes Up With Another Big Idea For Its Little Nano
By Michelle Krebs May 8, 2009
By Bill Visnic
Tata Motors already wins the auto-sector's buzz-of-the-year award for the $2,000 Nano basicar. But the company's onto another good idea: variable delivery charges for its every-penny-counts personal-mobility revolution.
Automotive Business Review says Tata will charge a variable delivery charge based on where the vehicle is ordered in relation to the Nano's assembly plant in the northern-India town of Pantnagar. The report says a Nano delivered to Mumbai has a delivery charge 11 percent higher than a Nano delivered to New Delhi.
Nanos can be ordered (for a $6 fee) at more than 30,000 locations allocated to some 1,000 cities in India.
The variable delivery charge idea comes at a time when many manufacturers have instituted considerable hikes in this once-ignorable fee in order to bolster profit margins. In the U.S. last year, many automakers quietly increased destination-and-delivery charges - some by substantial margins. The lowest d-and-d fee found last summer by data analysts at Edmunds.com was a not-inconsequential $560 and the charge for many mainstream models was flirting with the four-figure threshold.
U.S. automakers have long insisted the destination charge is calculated to be fair to all consumers, whether they live in the heart of the nation or in remote areas such as Alaska or Hawaii.
But Tata's strategy presents a thought-provoking alternative. The idea also could provide a new "buy local" incentive: Consumers who live near automotive assembly plants could pay almost no delivery charge if purchasing a vehicle made in that area.
LEAVE A COMMENT
That was a not infrequent objection when I was selling Fords at a dealership six miles from the Twin Cities Assembly Plant; "...It's a 25 cent, fifteen minute bus ride to the factory - how about I go get my Ranger myself and you drop the price another x hundred...?". How about it Hawaii and Alaska - waddya think?
That was a not infrequent objection when I was selling Fords at a dealership six miles from the Twin Cities Assembly Plant; "...It's a 25 cent, fifteen minute bus ride to the factory - how about I go get my Ranger myself and you drop the price another x hundred...?"
But we do pay on an ascending scale to have furniture, appliances, lumber etc delivered depending on how far we are from the Big Box. Maybe the OEM's could go back to the Free on Board / Port of Entry method of charging; drive here pay here.
ADD A COMMENT