A viable Family City Car. Review on Mahindra e2o

Summary

An ideal environment friendly commute car that can chip in as a car for travelling with family on weekends, though a bit pricey.

Overall Experience

True to its name of Garden City Bangalore has relatively many EVs(Electric Vehicles). In my area JP Nagar I see a Reva and an electric scooter almost every day and another E2O around every week.

Overall I am quite happy with my E2O which I bought in June 2013. Myself and my wife have completed over 4000 Kms so far without much maintenance except for Software upgrades for the controller.

The front seats are comfortable and it can be a great and economical commuter car if your work place is within 40 Kms or 70 Kms if your office has a reserved parking space with a charge point.

On the weekends it can be used for travel with family within the city. I have also sat in the back seat for trips close to an hour and found it okay. However getting in and out of the back seat is a bit of a problem especially for the elderly.

The charging is linear and it takes 5 hours to charge from 0 to 100%(Or Kms) taking a total of around 10 units of electricity.

I recommend the below link for a detailed coverage of specs and performance:

https://team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-reviews/134857-mahindra-reva-e2o-of
ficial-review.html

Though on paper E2O takes all of 11 seconds to go from 0 to 60 that too in B(Boost) mode, practically I find that it can keep up with Bangalore city traffic even on weekends at speeds upto 60 Kph with 4 people. This is considering the usual driving style of the other cars. However if an aggressive driver of a conventional car really wants to get ahead of you he would be able to do so even if you switch to B mode. The B mode can be thought of as being similar to downshifting gears for more power and is useful in quickly overtaking slow moving vehicles. It is better to use it in this fashion rather than be in the B mode continuously to save charge.

The% charge remaining and Kms remaining indicated in the speedometer dial is quite accurate and very useful to plan you trips and charging. The actual Kms driven versus the change in Kms remaining matches in case of gentle driving and avoiding quick braking by slowing down in advance. However the efficiency can reduce to 90% or even 80% if the car is pushed around a lot with quick braking or driven with full AC or in heavy rains with max wiper speed and periodic use of the defogger button. There is also a slight depletion of charge at the rate of anywhere between 2-5 Kms/day when the car is idle.

There is also a dedicated Trip meter to show the actual kms. covered after a recharge which resets to 0 after every charge. Assuming that you recharge before you hit the 10% charge mark you can easily travel 80-90 Kms on a single charge. However as the battery ages and you cover more kilometers the battery capacity also would drop gradually every year. As per Mahindra the battery should last upto 5 years which would mean that the capacity is atleast 70%(70 Kms. on a full charge) after 4-5 years which I hope holds good because the batteries are expensive.

Long Trips

My first long trip on a single charge was 70 Kms which was from JP Nagar(Bangalore) to Anekal and back. Onward was via Anekal road at speeds between 60 and 70 without AC and return was via Hosur Road and NICE road where I was mostly at speeds between 70 and 80 and touched 88 on the speedo. The AC was in position 2 and fan in 1. I started with 93 Kms charge and ended with 20 Kms taking just 3 Kms more charge than the distance covered.

I also did a round trip to Devanahalli charging the car on the return for half an hour after it had covered 72 odd Kms at the charge point outside Mahindra Showroom Sireesh Auto. The Cafe Coffee Day nearby was useful to have tea while waiting. The car would have made it back without recharge covering around 95 Kms with close to 10 Kms of charge left. But I recharged because I did not have a chargepoint at my apartment and had to make it to my office 6 Kms away next day to recharge. I covered a total of 130 Kms that day.

On The Highway

I have taken my E2O twice on the NICE road once from Electronic city to Bannerghatta Rd and once from Kanakpura Rd to Magadi Rd and back. The max. speed on a slight down slope is 83 on the GPS when it shows 88 on the speedo. On a level road you can touch 78 or 79 on the GPS without the use of B mode. On some inclined stretches of the NICE road the top speed dropped to 65. At one particular point the car maxed out at 63. I switched to B for a few seconds but did not notice any increase in speed or the power surge that you see in city conditions. The low side of energy efficiency was flashing and I quickly came back to F mode since I wanted to have atleast 20  Kms charge after completing the trip.

So though the E2O can manage to run on highways it cannot be said to be at home on them. Give way for conventional cars breezing past though some of them may follow for some time out of curiosity.

Possible Improvements

The car comes with conveniences like remote including trunk opening and power windows and mirrors in both versions and mobile app to monitor charge remotely for the T2 version.

However Power steering is something missing which one would expect for a car with a 7+ L price tag. You would notice its absence only when parking in a tight spot or when doing a U turn and not at other times.

In a regular car one is used to turning off the engine and getting off the car leaving it in 1st gear. For E2O engaging the hand brake is very important as otherwise the car will move if there is a slight slope. I have faced this twice before getting off the car. A P(Park) position for the drive selection which locks the wheel would be good.

The GPS navigation system that comes with the T2 model is not good and I usually taken the MapMyIndia navigator from my Ford Ikon for driving directions. Some channels like 100.1 on the radio which are clear on my Ford Ikon are somewhat distorted. A better GPS Navigation and radio would have added better value for the extra 60 K.

Cost of the car and Battery

The car is pricey even considering the low running costs and maintenance. I justified the cost by comparing the price with i10 automatic since E2O is also automatic. Of course the i10 can do much more but the usage pattern would be similar if you are using it as a second car.

I got the T2 version of the car which costs around 60 K more. It has a mobile app and a web page which is useful for knowing the charge status of your car among other things especially if the car is in the basement and charging. The reverse camera is also useful.

There is no official information about the price of the Lithium Ion battery pack in E2O but it is expected to be between 2 and 2.5L. Hopefully the cost will come down when it is due for replacement. My guess is it would be good to use the car to the best before the battery ages so that the battery cost per Km is less. For example if your car runs for 50 K before needing a 2 Lakh battery the battery cost per km is Rs. 4 but if it runs 80 K by 4-5 years and the batteries are replaced then the battery cost per km is Rs. 2.5. So the car will be a good fit if you have long commutes.

The cost of the car apart from the battery is also on the higher side given that an entire car(Nano) costs around the same as the battery.

Cost optimizations in both the car and the battery should be possible if there are higher volume in sales.

A couple of interesting things with an EV

At a traffic signal there is no need to decide whether or not to switch off the engine.

Bharat 3 or Bharat 4 signs on other vehicles, What is that:-)?

EVs in Apartments

I stay in an apartment and not being able to charge my car in the apartment has been the worst part of owning an EV.

In apartments esp