As stock markets around Asia and the world headed south today, India’s finance minister tried to calm the selling: “Look,” he said, “India’s economy is headed for a booming 9 percent growth this year.” So he hopes.
And what will Indians spend that plenty on? India’s industrial giant Tata hopes they will soon be spending it on a new car: the Nano. The cheapest car in the world. $2500 to get your family off the scooter and into a four-door five-seater.
The world’s near-poor may say “hooray.” Environmentalists are shouting “calamity.”
This hour, On Point: a car for the global masses, and what it means for the world.
-Tom Ashbrook
Guests:
John Paul MacDuffie, co-director of the International Motor Vehicle Program at MIT and associate professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Lee Schipper, director of research for the World Resources Institute Center for Transport and the Environment and visiting scholar at the University of California Transportation Center.
Tags: cars, climate change, India, technology
