MUMBAI: The Tata group on Tuesday launched its bid for leadership position in India’s transition to electric mobility with a ‘Made in India’ cutting-edge electric avatar of its popular compact SUV Nexon at a killer price of Rs 13.99 lakh for the base model and 312-km range on a single charge.
Developed in-house by pooling talent and expertise available across Tata group companies under chairman N Chandrasekharan’s ‘One Tata’ initiative, Nexon EV raises the bar for rivals Hyundai and Chinese-owned MG Motors by offering as accompaniment an EV (electric vehicle) ecosystem and doorstep service to buyers.
No wonder Tata Motors CEO Guenter Butschek described Nexon EV as “India’s own electric SUV” and a “game-changer with global standard”. “This high-performance, connected vehicle is uniquely suited to address the aspirations of Indian customers, and making EVs mainstream. We are confident this product will reinforce our commitment towards developing sustainable and responsible mobility solutions for India.”
The group has created ‘Tata UniEVerse’, a cache of talent and expertise by bringing together Tata Power, Tata Chemicals, Tata Autocomp, Tata Motors Finance and retail arm Croma, for developing products, solutions and customer experience for redefining electric mobility.
Tata Power chief,Praveer Sinha said his company will provide charging solution in Nexon EV buyers’ home within 15 days of the purchase. The company will also ramp up the network of charging stations to 650 by March and gradually expand to Tier-II and III cities with different charging architecture to bridge a major gap in adoption of EVs.
Croma head Avijit Mitra said the retail arm will offer an omni-channel, new way of selling cars with kiosks to showcase the capabilities and competitiveness of Nexon EV and accept bookings for test drives. Eventually, these may also become a sales point for the vehicle, as without competing with dealers but as Tata Motors EV head Sailesh Chandra said, would widen the funnel to catch consumers, especially the tech-savvy Genext who comes to Croma to, say, buy a smartphone”.
Group arms such as Tata Motors Finance will support sales through funding, while Tata Chemicals will take care of the indigenisation of battery and localisation of critical components will be led by Tata Solutions.
All these companies have contributed to making Nexon EV distinct from rival offerings. The battery can be charged up to 80% in 60 mins using a fast charger, while it will take 8 hours to do so with a home charger. Per-minute of fast charging will give it a range of 4 km and a 50% charge will last for 150 km.
The Nexon EV will be available in three trim levels across 60 authorized dealerships in 22 cities. Tata Motors is offering a two-tier charging system for the Nexon EV. There will be a standard 3.3 kW home charger, which will be provided with every car. This is to charge the batteries of this eSUV in a matter of 8 hours. When connected to a 50 kW charger, the batteries of the Nexon EV will be juiced up from 20 to 80 per cent in a matter of 60 minutes.
The vehicle will also come with a dedicated Battery Management System (BMS) designed for an extended battery life of up to eight years and will offer consistent performance. The powertrain also gets a dedicated cooling circuit in a bid to provide consistent performance in hot weather conditions.
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