History of Tata Motors: India’s Very Own Brand

Tata Motors is the largest automobile company in India in operation and the 3rd largest in sales. Tata Motors is known for providing some of the toughest and safest vehicles in the Indian market while maintaining affordable prices. Tata Motors Limited is one of the oldest and biggest car brands in India. Being a $42 Billion organisation, it is also a leading global manufacturer of cars, buses and trucks, having operations in more than 175 countries.

The brand also has a rich legacy of producing vehicles for India’s armed forces. Headed by our beloved Shri Ratan Tata, this brand is making India proud on a global stage, so let’s explore how it all started and the journey to the present. We present to you the history of Tata Motors Limited.

Where does it all Begin?

Way before Tata Motors came into existence, A 29-year-old Jamsedji Nusserwanji Tata had started a trading company in 1868 and this was the start of what became a huge empire in India called “Tata Group of Companies”. Now, the group has established several of its businesses throughout the years like Tata Steel and Tata Airlines until 1945, when the star of our article “Tata Motors” was born as “Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company”. Remember that around this time, Tata Motors was at its earliest phase and was only manufacturing commercial vehicles like trucks and buses for the Indian market. The passenger cars came later in the 1990s.

The company was renamed as Tata Motors in 2003. After locomotives, the brand introduced a steam road roller in 1948 with Marshall Sons. In 1954, Tata actually entered the automobile market by launching the first commercial vehicle TMB 312 trucks. Tata Motors also launched India’s 1st locally designed car known as Tata Safari and in 1998, the brand introduced the iconic passenger car, “Tata Indica”. In 2005, the brand started offering the Tata Ace as an inter-city and distribution option known as the “Chota Hathi”.

But in 2009, the company suffered huge losses when it revealed the Nano as its most affordable car yet with a price tag of just Rs 1 Lakh. Now, of course, the car failed because of how it was portrayed and how it looked which can be a topic of its own but yes, the Nano is now considered as a product that was ahead of its time.

Tata Motors is also known for its highly active expansions and acquisitions strategy. In 2004, the brand acquired the iconic South Korean brand Daewoo’s truck manufacturing unit while in 2008, Tata ended up buying the UK Luxury car brands Jaguar and Land Rover.

In 2020, Tata Motors launched its “New Forever” series of passenger vehicles and the Nexon EV took birth which includes the start-of-the-art Ziptron tech, long-range, seamless connectivity and reasonable pricing. These factors helped in the rise of the Nexon EV as India’s most popular EV.

So, it all began with a vision of a young man whose will to achieve success gave birth to several pillars, and Tata Motors is one such pillar. Today the brand is a core part of the Tata Group of Companies and headed by Shri Ratan Tata, the brand has been reaching new heights. Even the Nano, which was a huge failure was a result of the vision of seeing every middle-class man owning a car instead of navigating their way every day through traffic on their bikes which gets pretty exhausting.

Current Scenario

Today, Tata Motors not only provides services to over 175+ countries, but it also has a strong global network of 134 subsidiaries and joint ventures including the previously mentioned Tata Daewoo in South Korea and the UK’s Jaguar Land Rover. The brand has a cutthroat competition with Hyundai for 2nd place in overall sales in India. Tata Motors is also India’s only fully integrated automobile marquee with a huge lineup of trucks, buses, passenger cars and utility vehicles along with the biggest production capacity in India today compared to other brands.

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