Word: auto
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...peaceful out here. I love the wildlife," says Mike Strobridge, 32, an auto mechanic, explaining why he moved to the Carrisa Plains with his daughter. "But then these solar guys are going to come in, and they're just gonna destroy the area." Strobridge is especially troubled because he will be "surrounded on four sides" by the three projects. What's more, like his neighbors and other concerned parties - including the Environmental Center of San Luis Obispo County - Strobridge is worried about the impact the power plants will have on endangered species such as the San Joaquin...
...from fully equipped Nanos with air-conditioning, power windows and upholstered seats, which cost about $3,300. "How they're really going to make money is by selling the high-end version," says Tilak Swarup, general manager of SupplierBusiness India, whose team of analysts tracks suppliers to the global auto industry. But the company has not yet decided how many high-end versions to produce...
...Tata Troubles While the company seeks to redefine the low end of the market, Tata Motors is struggling with its attempt to gate-crash the luxury-car segment. Last year, the Indian carmaker made auto-industry waves when it spent $2.3 billion to buy Ford Motor's lossmaking Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) business. Since then, demand for luxury vehicles has tanked, sales of Tata Motors other models have softened, and the company faces a looming deadline to refinance $2 billion in loans for the JLR deal. "That's a major cash-flow crunch for them," Jajoo says. The company...
...year. Beyond that, it will use satellite plants to build the car's components and distribute these in Nano "kits" to independent entrepreneurs - trained and monitored by Tata Motors - for final assembly and distribution. "They will become our dealers," Ratan Tata explains. He hopes the Nano will push the auto industry toward fully outsourced manufacturing, leaving car companies to focus on design and marketing - a structure similar to that used in the highly competitive computer industry, where companies such as Apple create products but subcontract the actual manufacturing to specialists operating factories in China and other countries where labor costs...
...innovation far outside the big cities. "It's kind of like the iPod," says Tarun Khanna, a Harvard Business School professor who has studied the Tata Group for years. The Nano is a blank slate, he explains, that makes people think, What can you do with it? What if auto-rickshaw drivers bought Nanos, for example, and used them as more profitable, safer taxis? Or if farmers used them to bring their goods to market more quickly...