We hunger for isotropic, schedule-free mobility. The most important speed increase is from walking speed of 3 mph to 30 mph, an order of magnitude increase. The Tata Nano was designed with this rate of speed increase in mind.

Although humans are a remarkably infertile species, we are able to expand our population, even after, or especially after, catastrophic population crashes caused by war, famine and disease. The one thing that consistently suppresses population increase is prosperity. Those countries that have the greatest prosperity, and the greatest mobility, have the lowest population growth rates. Remember, Peak Oil and Global Warming and food shortages are a function of human population increase.

The Tata Nano is the most significant automotive innovation in the 50 years since Alec Issigonis revolutionized automotive design with the transverse engine front wheel drive Austin Mini. Both the Nano and the original Mini are products of the recognition that morphology (shape) is the most important design parameter. Both provide maximum functionality with minimum mass and exterior volume. Ratan Tata, CEO of the Tata Group, came up with a parsimonious design brief and held his engineers to it, in a similar way that Pierre-Jules Boulanger did 70 years ago to develop that paragon of simplicity, the Citroen 2CV. This runs totally counter to the present automotive industry norm of relying on complexity as a design solution.

If we are to reduce drastically and rapidly our use of fossil fuels, the answer to our personal transportation needs can be most effectively met with vehicles sharing the Tata Nano’s morphology. Today’s and tomorrow’s “green cars” are complex and expensive, resulting in slow replacement of our present inefficient vehicle base. American market Nano-like cars costing half as much as a base compact sedan would satisfy 80% of our transportation needs and use one-third the fuel of our present U.S. fleet average.

Nanos can also help us avoid the ecological disaster of having to resort to coal powered cars, since that is what electric cars will effectively be. Over half our electricity comes from coal, and the quickest, cheapest way for the electric power industry to add capacity to fill the increased demand of electric vehicles is to build more coal-fired power plants.