Tata Motors will be launching the Bolt hatchback and Zest sedan in a couple of months from now and these vehicles will come bundled with high hopes from Tata officials. While these two products have their own competitors to deal with, the desi manufacturer is coming up with a new hatchback. The new product is called Kite and it will be slotted between the Nano and Bolt. The Kite will come with a tall-boy design that will prove to be extremely practical. The Tata Kite is nothing but the Dolphin that we rendered earlier this year and it will be manufactured at the company’s Sanand plant.
The Tata Kite will mainly compete with the Maruti Celerio and Ford Figo. It will be offered with a petrol engine first while a diesel version will be added later on. We can expect Tata to plonk in a CNG kit in the Kite and make it an amazing choice for those who are looking for efficiency. The petrol engine is going to be a 3-cylinder 900cc unit based on the new 1.2-litre Revotron turbocharged engine. The diesel engine will be a 3-cylinder DICOR unit. Since the company is using 3-cylinder engines, the refinement levels might not be as good as 4-cylinder units.
The Sanand facility has an annual production capacity of around 2.5 lakh units and the Kite will actually utilise most of the capacity since the Nano didn’t perform as expected. The Kite looks very fresh and lively and it will surely bring about a significant change in the boring image that Tata Motors has acquired over the years. Some of the other competitors of the Tata Kite will be the Chevrolet Beat, Hyundai i10 and Maruti Wagon R. The Kite will be launched by the end of 2015, coming after the launch of the Nexon compact SUV.
