EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is an editorial reprinted from the Jan. 16 edition of USA Today.
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In the USA, $2,500 won’t buy some top-end bicycles. In India, soon it will be enough to buy a car.

Granted that the new Nano, from Mumbai-based Tata Motors, is only about 10 feet long, has a tiny 33-horsepower engine and comes fully loaded with, well, um  — a windshield wiper. But there is something both inspiring and disconcerting about this bite-sized piece of automotive engineering, which is being compared to the Model T that Henry Ford introduced a century ago.

The Nano is inspiring because it symbolizes the rise of a middle class in a country that has been far too impoverished for far too long. Many of the people who will buy these cars grew up thinking they’d never have more than an ox cart. Now they will be able to get around on India’s bustling streets in more comfort and safety than they ever imagined. While these cars won’t have airbags or fancy braking systems, merely being surrounded by an auto body and sheltered from the elements is a dramatic advance that’s hard to begrudge.

But the car is also disconcerting because it speaks volumes about the enormous environmental and social challenges the world faces as millions join the car-owning classes. India has more people (1.1 billion) than there are cars in the world (about 600 million). As more of its citizens drive cars, live in larger homes and consume more power, this will make it harder to come to grips with climate change, no matter what Western countries do to curb their greenhouse gas emissions.

And if $3 gasoline seems like a short-term phenomenon, think again. With a rising Asian middle class snapping up Nanos and other cars like it, demand for oil is likely to go higher.

The thrifty price tag also says something about labor costs and economic competition. There is no way a car  — even one without airbags, aßir conditioner and radio  — could be made for anything close to $2,500 in a Western country. General Motors has been spending about $1,500 per car just on employee health benefits.

Companies like Tata are one more challenge that Detroit faces in a changing world. Tata not only can capitalize on cheap labor in its home markets, but it is also focused on tapping into consumer spending in developing countries by getting to those consumers with products made and priced for them.

So while the Nano might not be much to look at, it just might be the little car that changes the world.