Tata Motors Ltd. (TTM)

All Comments on TTM

  • commenter
    ARKAY2008
    Aug 21 03:39 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    Being a person born in the US does not give one a right to own/use a car. As a human, you should be thankful that these countries are trying make things affordable for more people. Most of the cars in US carry a single person, whereas in India/China it is at least 2. Also, how weird the comparision of salaries. A dollar in US is offers far less buying power than a dollar in India.

    Get rid of that fancy gas guzzlers here, and let all the people in the world enjoy fuel-efficient ways to commute.     Reply
  • commenter
    Kunst
    Aug 18 10:26 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    Deepak, I agree completely. It is amazing that the world continues to take US dollars for goods of real value, with oil at the top of the list. Reply
  • commenter
    Deepak
    Shenoy
    Aug 17 03:09 AM
    My Website
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    Btw, India pays more than the US per "gallon" of petrol, despite what people think of as huge subsidies, because gas is taxed to hell and back. A liter of petrol costs Rs. 55 in Mumbai, and a gallon is what, 3.5 liters? That, at Rs. 43 to a dollar, gives you the $4 petrol we are ALREADY paying. And guess what, this has always been the case - on a comparison we have always paid more than the US for petrol (okay, we do pay lesser for diesel, but the small car you talk about is petrol for the $2500 price)

    Now let's take this $2000 income person. Will probably not drive more than 4000 km. a year. With the fuel efficiency of the small car, they'll pay some Rs. 2.2 per kilometer (25 km/lt). Say Rs. 3 including maintenance.

    I think by $2,000 you actually mean someone earning more than Rs. 1 lakh (Rs. 100,000) per year which is $2500 per year. At least that's what I think (we don't think in dollar terms, so a lakh is like the lower minimum) And this is post tax because tax doesn't hit you till you earn at least Rs. 150,000 a year.

    On a Rs. 100,000 salary, the cost of getting the car, at $4 per barrel gas, is 12%. That's not much more than the 11.5% that the US spends on gas:
    blogs.wsj.com/economic.../

    Note then that Rs. 100,000 is the absolute lower end of middle class. If you take tax payers (of which there are officially only 33 million, or 3.3 "crore" in our terminology) who earn a minimum of Rs 150,000 that percentage will diminish. At say 300,000 a year, 8000 kms and 18 km/lt cars, we are speaking of about Rs. 26,000 in [only] gas expenses, which is 9%. I would imagine that people with less than 300,000 a year would only buy two-wheelers which give some 60 km per lt (that's about 130mpg) and the corresponding fuel cost as a % of income is considerably lower.

    Of course all this is set to change dramatically. With the highway upgrades nearly done, you can drive the length of the country easier and with power, water and phone/data spreading out people will be willing to drive, to work and for pleasure. Then, the $4 per barrel gas won't make sense - but by that time - a year or so from now - gas may not be at that level. Plus, in a few years, $4 at todays rates is likely to mean Rs. 30 or Rs. 25 with India's growth reflecting in the drop of the dollar against the rupee. (The rate is Rs. 43 now)

    Note that government employees form the base of the "middle class" - i.e. they are lower paid that the equivalents in the private sector. The government just raised their minimums to Rs. 10,000 per month and that does not include typical perks like conveyance, phone bills and allowances.

    And finally, consider that cars can run on compressed natural gas, which is cheaper, burns better, and is less polluting. India has large reserves of CNG as well, and there are pipelines being built to distribute it across the country. If it becomes a fuel of the small car, then the entire equation can change - where, coupled with a falling dollar, even 2x or 3x growth in car ownership, miles driven or cost of gas may not impact spending power.

    What you might not have accounted for is that Chindia can use more efficient fuels before they become a "standard". Kinda like cellular phones.

    And kunst: when you make the supply of dollars unlimited, the dollar will not be the currency of oil.

    Reply
  • commenter
    Kunst
    Aug 16 03:55 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    I'm always amazed that people have no problem with the idea that Americans will cut oil consumption when the price skyrockets, but think that countries with a fraction of our GDP and disposable income will sustain their demand.

    And don't forget, we have an unlimited supply of dollars, the currency of oil.     Reply
  • commenter
    bmali
    Aug 16 01:20 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    as much as i agree the price and income has real bearing on consumption i continue to be amazed at this idiotic use of ABSOLUTE value of dollar when comparing income . it is simply meaningless to say a person in place X earns 1 dllar a day with out knowing what that 1 dollar will buy OVER THERE .
    a lot more meaningful and informative is use of Purchasing Power Euivalency .     Reply
  • commenter
    captbob
    Aug 16 01:15 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    Of far more impact than new car owners, are the millions whose newfound definition of affluence, is entering the fuel consumer class by putting a motor on a bike they previously peddled and buying a pint of gas a day. Reply
  • commenter
    Prashanth
    Aug 16 12:14 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    {Quote}Maybe they are just angry because TTM has gone from $20 to $9 and headed to $1. They bought Jaguar and Land Rover... what a stupid move and now looking to buy Hummer... real good on fuel. This company is getting driven to the ground. {/Quote}

    Stupid Move? Interesting that you say that since it just tells me that you have no idea about Brands. Do you know as to how much time it has taken for Toyota to establish a Lexus? If Tata had not gone with the take over, it would have lost a lifetime oppurtunity since such Brands never come on DISTRESS Sale. Recently read that Jaguar will soon be launching a $100K car. You can well imagine the kind of margins those cars shall have.

    With regard to buying of Hummer, as far as my info is concerned, neither Tata nor any other Company has come forward for that Brand. Its unlikely to be ever sold unless given away for a pittiance.

    Reply
  • commenter
    captainjohan
    n
    Aug 16 12:00 PM
    My Website
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    So what is it Bush is crying about? Reply
  • commenter
    andyn
    Aug 16 10:41 AM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    This is a simple supply and demand issue... dont complicate matters.
    Already the Nano demand is beyond supply... and that is even before the car has launched!!!
    TTM is projected to make a profit if they can sell over 45K cars / years.
    This is the chance to get on board a quality company which will own the Indian market (both the low and high end of the spectrum).
    My target for TTM is $18 by year end when the Nano launches.
     Reply
  • commenter
    paulk8756
    Aug 16 10:10 AM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    So what's the point?

    We started all this with the Ford Model T. Some things change, economic behavior doesn't.     Reply
  • commenter
    jduke
    Aug 15 06:11 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]

    Aug 15 02:44 PM
    @jduke
    Doesn't matter if it's 2000 or 20000 miles no reasonable person can believe that fuel consumption will continue to rise in Chindia at over $4 a gallon when salaries are so low.

    Over $4 a gallon is not that severe a problem when you are driving a 150cc scooter or motorcycle which usually give you upwards of 100 miles per gallon even with the clogged roads in India or other developing countries. When I was in India it was a pleasant surprise to see how far a tank of gas went on a motorcycle. No matter what you believe in it should be a no-brainer that with the Chindian economies on the rise we're not going to witness huge drops in gasoline consumption, although the Indians have been producing a decent all electric car called Reva for the last 3 years now. With improved electricity generation capabilities they should be able to manage just fine.     Reply
  • commenter
    Tarun
    Aug 15 05:06 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    "@jduke
    Doesn't matter if it's 2000 or 20000 miles no reasonable person can believe that fuel consumption will continue to rise in Chindia at over $4 a gallon when salaries are so low.
    I visited Mumbai back when it was still Bombay."

    The switch occured in 1995 (CIA Factbook, Wikipedia), before the major companies began offshoring (go look at ISP pervasiveness figures). I've gone to India once a year, every year in my life and like d_sat said, India's Middle Class (which is defined by various metrics depending on who you talk too) is very widespread. The Americanized view of the world believes that a middle class must exist under the exact same conditions that are found in America; however, in India, you can find an auto driver, a store clerk and a store owner who all will tell you they are in the middle class - yet the Auto Driver makes $2,000, the Clerk makes $10,000 and the Store Owner makes $50,000. The reason for this (I suspect) is the rather large aristocracy that India has; similar to Russia (and of late, China), India has an enormous amount of wealth poured into it's (relatively) large upper class...so much so that it severely (in an uneasily correlative way) skews any simple metrics on a continuous real probability space (i.e. the statistics you are using). You'd need some better weighted figures to account for this huge discrepancy; think of it as using modern American class standards on pre-WWI Europe...it just wouldn't work because of the cultural/class differences. Unlike America, where we have a rather uniform (and normal) distribution of income, India has a very uninterpretable income distribution due to society and cultural differences. Your analysis was a good try (I'm sure many other culturally-unaware people would easily agree with your analysis), but it disregards some of the cultural aspects of India that really make it a different economy than America.     Reply
  • commenter
    betty202
    Aug 15 03:42 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    Maybe they are just angry because TTM has gone from $20 to $9 and headed to $1. They bought Jaguar and Land Rover... what a stupid move and now looking to buy Hummer... real good on fuel. This company is getting driven to the ground. Reply
  • commenter
    betty202
    Aug 15 02:44 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    @jduke
    Doesn't matter if it's 2000 or 20000 miles no reasonable person can believe that fuel consumption will continue to rise in Chindia at over $4 a gallon when salaries are so low.
    I visited Mumbai back when it was still Bombay.     Reply
  • commenter
    jduke
    Aug 15 02:33 PM
    Cheap Chindian Cars and High Priced Oil Don't Mix [view article]
    One of the most stupid and simplistic analysis I've ever seen. Despite the growing demand for gasoline in developing countries like China and India the US still accounts for almost 60% of the gasoline consumed in the world. It almost seems like any improvements in living standards in Chindia is anathema to the vast majority of Americans. An average Indian commuter probably drives close to 2000 miles in an year, not 12000. Plus public transportation and 2 wheelers (of the 150cc engine variety, not 1200c Harleys) is the norm not the exception. Almost everyone who buys a car also has a 2 wheeler. The car is usually reserved for occasions where more than 2 people need to commute and would not fit on a 2-wheeler. Luka, you should visit Chindia once before spouting about things that you don't have the foggiest clue about. Reply

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