'Do something': When N Chandrasekaran's wife complained to him about no Tata cars on road

Tata Sons Chairman N Chandrasekaran said that there used to be a time when there were no Tata cars on the road as opposed to now, when every second car is one made by the company. Chandrasekaran was speaking at BT Mindrush 2023 at a session titled ‘Reinventing Tata’, where he spoke about the company’s successes, failures and its connection with the consumers.

Recalling an anecdote from years ago about his wife Lalitha Chandrasekaran, Chandrasekaran said, “I used to drive to Lonavala, and my wife used to sit next to me and she would count the cars and there would be no Tata cars. She would say, “Do something! I can’t see any Tata cars”. Now you see every other car is a Tata car.”

Speaking about the transformation of Tata Motors, Chandrasekaran said that the teams work hard and if they succeed it leads to more energy, innovation and aspiration.

He said that at Tata Motors they made a bet on electric mobility, which paid off. “We have done incredibly well and we owned 80 per cent of the market in a very short span of time,” said Chandrasekaran, further adding that at Tata Motors they have 10 launches for electric vehicles planned. “We cannot fall behind in the launches – every product has to be good, the quality has to be good, customisation has to be good. We are still launching the cars with the technology that we have,” he said.

“But the cars that will come in 2025, we are completely revamping the technology. There is no reason for Indian cars to have less technology than in the rest of the world,” he said.

He also said that the company is working with various startups for novelty vehicles. Speaking about lithium ion batteries, Chandrasekaran said that they don’t know when that sector will get disrupted. “There will be sodium and there will be aluminium,” he said.

While companies must innovate, their adaptation and agility should also be faster, he said. “We can’t say we will take 4 years, 3 years, it doesn’t work,” he said.

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