Pune: From the launch of Indica in 1998, Tata Motors has come a long way when it comes to car designs.
The latest launches have been successful in attracting the younger generation of buyers. Sakal Times caught up with Pratap Bose, Head of Design, Tata Motors, who threw light on the revolution Tata Motors has undergone when it comes to car designs.
Bose, who graduated from the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad before completing his masters in automotive design at Royal College of Art, London, has been head of design at Tata Motors since 2011.
When asked how the transition has been from the first generation to second generation of Impact Design, Bose said, “When we did four cars under Impact Design 1, which were Tiago, Tigor, Nexon and Hexa, our position in the minds of the customer was slightly different. In fact, I would say we lost mind share. And for me to gain mind share, to then gain market share was very important. Because if you are not in people’s consideration set, they do not come to your dealership. So Impact Design 1 needed to bring people back to the showroom and be a different kind of audience to our brand. Hence, it had a double objective, which was we bring people back and also to attract a new kind of customer. Our market share gain, volume gain in the last 18 to 24 months have been very strong. In fact, we have outperformed the industry.”
Adding further, Bose said, “Impact Design 2.0 is slightly different. We are moving now to two new global platforms, which are Alfa Arc and Omega Arc. They are architectures, which give us a very wide range of products that we can address. We are only able to address 70 per cent of the market and with the new platforms, we will be having a much wider spread of products. So right from 3.8 metres we can go to 4.7 metres, which we could not do earlier on basic architectures.”
When asked how he looks at the design revolution right from the Indica launch to the current models, Bose said, “When Indica came out in 1997-98, it was in itself a revolution because of not only what was happening in India but globally. Since then, the world around has changed. I think that India has changed faster than the rest of the world. The younger generation, they really drive companies to do and think in a different way. Otherwise, they leave you very quickly. I think the millennials do not have the brand loyalty and you can’t expect it and can’t take it for granted. If they find something better, they will move faster than you can adjust. So for us, we had to have a revolution.”
When asked about his views on the design culture in India, Bose said, “India is becoming much more design aware. In every area of products and services, the design is becoming fundamental - be it the apps or the billboards that you see. Design is not only skin deep, it is also how you interact with a product, a service or a company. A change in awareness of good design in India is remarkable. The pace of this change has happened in the last 7 to 10 years. Design awareness has increased manifold in India, which is a positive thing for people like us.”
When asked about what are the efforts which go in right from conceptualising to the final design, Bose explained, “We have three global design studios. There’s a part of the process, which involves sketching manually. Before that, we go through a phase where we define the product with the planning team, strategy team, the marketing people and designers. We think about what the future product should be. We spend a lot of time in defining that. Product definition is important. We try and identify some white spaces in the market. We don’t want to go into segments in which we won’t be a significant player. We choose out segments very carefully.”
When asked whether India is ready to go fully electric, Bose said, “Today what we have are electrified cars. We have an internal combustion engine, which we take out and replace with a battery and motor. That is the situation we are in today in India. The next generation will be born electric where you are not replacing an internal combustion engine and putting an electric drivetrain.
Born electric means it is conceived to be an electric car from day one, which gives you some totally different architecture. The bonnet doesn’t have to be that long to accommodate an engine, it does not have to be that high. You can have a long wheelbase to accommodate the batteries under the floor and that will change the game significantly. Technically we are ready, we are there, but we are not ready infrastructure wise,” Bose concluded.