“Mass mobility and innovative mobility programs can help adoption of Electric Vehicles”

Mahesh Babu, CEO, Mahindra Electric tells Vidyottama Sharma that the stage is set for favourable policies and an active push by the government for adoption of EVs. This, he says, will make India one of the leading players in the global EV mobility space.

Electric Vehicles (EVs) are set to revolutionise India in the next decade. What benefits can be accrued from them?

When seen from the lens of an entire nation, EVs have a huge impact on the economy by reducing the oil import bill drastically. At present, this creates a huge negative impact on us and mass adoption of electric vehicles is a great way to bring this down. On a micro level, EVs bring about a definite improvement in the urban city dweller’s life. They help battle issues like pollution, congestion and the inconveniences of daily driving. Mahindra Electric’s hatchback CitySmart car e2oPlus is a perfect example of this.

Electric vehicles are the newer and better way to power movement. While there are obvious macro, micro and environmental benefits, they also make great economic sense for the owner of the vehicle. The running cost of EVs is a fraction as compared to other vehicles. The maintenance too is close to 60% lesser than other vehicles. When you apply these facts to the fleet business, running electric vehicles becomes much more viable than any other kind of vehicles. To add to their utility, these vehicles are connected and boast of telematics capabilities which aren’t available in other vehicles.

What are the highlights of your initial offerings — e2oPlus, eVerito and eSupro — in the e-auto market?

All three products, the e2oPlus all-electric city smart hatchback, electric sedan eVerito and commercial/ passenger vehicle eSupro, are already available in the market. All three vehicles are equipped with features that are common amongst all EVs like easy home charging, regenerative braking, direct drive transmission and Mahindra Electric’s patent technology — REVive.

Apart from these, the e2oPlus (P8) comes with a range of 140km and a top speed of 85km/hour. With exceptional features like telematics, smartphone connectivity, hill assist, etc., the vehicle is a perfect fit for an urban city dweller battling the inconveniences of the city traffic today. The eVerito has a range of 110km and a top speed of 86km/hour. This vehicle is generating a lot of interest in the fleet segment for executive transfers. The eSupro is available in both the commercial and passenger variants. With the range of 112km and 115km respectively, and the top speed of 60km/hour, the vehicle is great for last mile connectivity and delivery.

Which more sections do you plan to venture into?

From here, we plan to move on our future roadmap for electric vehicles – EV 2.0. Through this, we will be launching new products as well as mobility solutions. For products we are looking at mass movement vehicles like threewheelers and eBus; as well as high performance vehicles with 380 V to 650 V systems and 250km to 350km. We believe that mass mobility and innovative mobility programs like sharing or hiring are the best way forward for maximum Indians to adopt EVs.