For Tata Motors of India, which will introduce its ultra-cheap car Thursday, the better question was, what could it take out?

The company has kept its new vehicle under wraps, but interviews with suppliers and others involved in its construction reveal some of its cost-cutting engineering secrets — including a hollowed out steering-wheel shaft, a trunk with space for a briefcase, and a rear-mounted engine not much more powerful than a high-end riding mower.

The upside is a car expected to retail for as little as the equivalent of $2,500, or about the price of the optional DVD player on the Lexus LX 470 sport utility vehicle.

The downside is a car that would likely fail emission and safety standards on any Western road and, perhaps, in India in a few years, when the country imposes tougher environmental standards.

But Tata is not looking to ply California's highways. Instead, the company wants to provide four-wheel transportation for the first time to people accustomed to getting around on two, including hundreds of millions of Indians and others in the developing world.

Even so, the "People's Car" (a nickname, since Tata has kept the real name under wraps, too) may ultimately affect what many people drive around the world, since it is part of a broader trend among carmakers to try to build less expensive cars.

"It's basically throwing out everything the auto industry had thought about cost structures in the past and taking out a clean sheet of paper and asking, 'What's possible?"' said Daryl T. Rolley, head of North American and Asian operations for Ariba, which sources parts for Tata, BMW, Toyota and other carmakers.

Some of the few people who have seen the car describe a tiny, charming, four-door, five-seater hatchback shaped like a jelly bean, small in the front and broad in the back, the better to reduce wind resistance and permit a cheaper engine. "It's a nice car — cute," said A.K. Chaturvedi, senior vice president of business development at Lumax Industries, a supplier in Delhi that developed the car's headlights and interior lamps.

The model appearing Thursday has no radio, no power steering, no power windows, no air conditioning and one windshield wiper instead of two, according to suppliers and Tata's own statements.