Tata Motors’ cheap Indian-built car, the Nano, has passed its first basic European structural safety tests and is on course for a European version to be available by 2012.
Tata engineers brought two modified Nanos to the UK test house MIRA this month to put them through a 50 km/h side impact test and a 56 km/h offset frontal impact test. The two tests are the minimum required for a legal vehicle in Europe and will become the Indian structural safety standard in 2012.
Tata engineering chief Clive Hickman said the aim of the tests was to show that with basic modifications the present car could meet the existing safety regulations and to set the vehicle on course for a European version to be ready by 2012. “The basic car was never designed to come to Europe,” he said.
The car tested at MIRA had extra foam added to the cant rail, a reinforced front longitudinal structure, and some added structure both behind the front bumper and in the front doors. The modifications were made on the body-in-white line at the Nano’s temporary factory in India.
The tests were certified by Nic Fasci, type approval engineer working for the UK government’s Vehicle Certification Agency. After the frontal crash, Fasci said: “It looks no different from other cars doing this test. It’s a good crash.”
More on the tests here
Video of the frontal test here
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Video link here
Further detail here
Test results here
Picture gallery here
Click the pics in the article to make them bigger.
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