Comments
Silence… That is what hits you first when you press the start button on the Mahindra Reva electric car. There is a low electric whine, the instrument panel lights up and it’s ready to go.
Shift the gear stick to forward position, press the pedal and you are off. You only hear the buzz of rubber tyres on concrete.
For a driver used to the stick-shift, petrol-powered car, there seems to be little to do. No ignition, no growl of the petrol-powered engine, no clutch to engage or gears to shift.
Journalists on a trip organised by Mahindra Reva Electric Vehicles to its factory on the outskirts of Bangalore got a taste of what it feels like to drive an electric car.
Mahindra Reva’s e2o, a battery-powered four-seater hatchback, can run a 100-km on a single charge of about five hours. The car consumes about 10 units of electricity for every kilometre it runs.
While the electricity cost may sound steep, the overall running cost of an electric car is just about one-tenth of a petrol-powered version, according to Jagan Kurian, Head-Sales and Marketing.
Compare someone buying ₹5.4-lakh e2o and someone spending the same on a petrol-fuelled car.
The owner driving the battery-powered car will save about ₹86,000 a year and about ₹64,000 compared with a diesel-powered car, averaging about 50 km a day.
Chetan Maini, CEO, Mahindra Reva, says the issue in popularising electric-powered cars is “not about technology but people’s perception”.
The manufacturer hopes to give as many people a chance to drive its car in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore, where these models are now being marketed, and decide for themselves.
It has launched a marketing scheme, tied up with cab companies that hire these cars and set up recharging points at its own expense.
It even pays the electricity that the car owners use when they charge their cars at these points.
The biggest concern for the car owners is the expensive battery bank which can set an owner back by about ₹1.75 lakh.
So, to protect the buyer, the company has come up with a goodbye-fuel-hello-electric offer. For ₹4.99 lakh, consumers get an e2o.
For the battery, the buyers pay ₹2,599 a month. For five years or 50,000 km, the company guarantees optimal battery performance.
Mahindra Reva has also tied up with cab companies such as Carz on Rent and Zoom so that people can hire the e2o for a few hundred rupees a day, Maini said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.