How does a battery car work for domestic travel within India?

 

So, we are completing almost a year with our Tata Nexon EV, and no contest, this is the best city car at this price point going today from the parameters of safety, comfort and cost of operation. Actually, let me correct that - if your usage is typically between home / office / factory / farm, especially if these movements are in rural India, then nothing works better than an EV. You can add 2-wheelers, 3-wheelers and micro-mini trucks to the ensemble.

The biggest benefit in my experience of driving going to more than half a century in years is NO MORE FEAR OF ADULTERATED FUEL. This is even more important with the forthcoming onset of ethanol mixed with liquid fuels. To be truthful, my heart used to palpitate when I had to re-fuel at unknown filling stations, and that's about as real as it gets.

The second biggest benefit is the quality of the ride, in as much as there are no gears, and the acceleration as well as re-gen braking is like an extension of your mind and eyes transmitted to your feet. This is all the more helpful when handling gradients and you soon get used to using your left feet for hill-hold if required. Note - this is not for everyone.

The third biggest benefit, but of course, is operational cost - however I put that aside because we have done just about 7500 kilometres in a year, so for us, the third biggest benefit is the total absence of vibration and the opera house type audio. 

Everything else, the pretties inside and the shape outside, is form and function.

So how does an EV work for domestic travel?

Well, to start with, if your EV has a range of 200-300kms, actual, on full load with 4 people and luggage, then it works quite well across much of India. The number of public fast charging stations is growing on a daily basis, though you do have to plan well, not all of them are going to be on the highway, for example.

Likewise, if you have a longer drive on a well-known or regular route, then you can very easily get to learn about the credibility of the fast charger outlets. Here, however, the big elephant in the room is the cost per unit of electricity, which can be 2x to 4x what you pay at home for slow charging. That does upset the calculations a lot, especially if you do not have access to slow charging at destination for a full night slow charge to 100% balanced.

In short, taking an EV as the only vehicle on a vacation is still a bit of an adventure - unless you have planned things out well. It needs just one backlog of 3-4 vehicles already charging ahead of you to set you back for a lot of time that you had not allowed for.

As far as I am concerned, my favourite EV for domestic travel in India, remains trains. EV cars for me are strictly for local running. Owned or hired.

And yes, they are really green, in every which way.