Unboxing The Qute

The smaller The car, the bigger the storm it stirs up. and in most cases, it is overblown.

- Hormazd Sorabjee

The Nano got activists screaming prophetically that hundreds of thousands of them would choke our roads. more recently, the Global NCAP has painted every small car in India it has crash-tested as a death trap.

The biggest storm, however, surrounds the smallest car yet. except that it’s not technically a car, but a quadricycle. ever since the Bajaj Qute was unveiled at the 2012 auto expo (as the re60), it’s been mired in controversy. The argument: should quadricycles be clubbed with cars and be allowed for personal transport? Or, should they be in the same category as auto rickshaws for commercial use only (though the law allows individuals to own and drive a rick)?

The definition of Indian rules for this all-new category is the core of a heated debate that has the industry divided ever since Bajaj auto laid bare its plans. Globally, quadricycles have a different set of regulations, which is not as stringent as those regular cars have to comply with. here, the fundamental differences in the regulations between cars and auto rickshaws centre around emissions and safety, and it’s the latter that has become a prickly issue. It is understandably so, given our nation’s inglorious claim of being No. 1 in the world when it comes to road deaths. The horrifically high body count has made safety a highly emotive subject, but the trouble is the perception of what saves lives is not always rooted in hard evidence or facts.

Bajaj applied to the ministry of road Transport for the creation of a new quadricycle category, just a few months after the re60 was unveiled. That raised the hackles of rival automakers that saw Bajaj with its first-mover advantage as the main beneficiary of this new class of vehicle. They wanted a level playing field but as it’s turned out, it’s a minefield Bajaj has gotten into.