[Family_Man]

My overall experience from Delivery to first long drive

Now I have spent 9 days with my XEV 9E and Odo is 1140 km

Delivery Experience- It was horrible experience of new car delivery even after buying the most premium car of the brand. Lots of false promises and escalation to top. Delivery arrangement was zero, no cake cutting no celebration just got the key and car, even there was no ribbon on car. Just got the key and car. But i was happy with that because those 2 are the only things which i wanted

Niggles:- 2nd day after taking delivery faced major failure. AC stopped working. I had aplanned trip on 11th April and on 10th I was with car without AC. Called my SA, went to showroom in hot noon, my SA acted promptly and took my car to service centre. I met Branch Manager of Koncept and luckily some Mahindra EV guys were also there. For 6 hours Engineers tried to diagnose but couldn’t find the real issue. I was disheartened. But BM has involved their seniors and Mahindra team, they have sent expert team from gurgaon and got my issue resolved and car delivered at home by 10 PM. Next morning I had a trip planned from Noida - Khatu Shyamji- jaipur- Tapukara - Noida. There was issue in AC controller which was replaced. Spent 33 lakh and in 2 days this horrible experience.

Drive Experience and Range - There are already loads of discussions regarding driving dynamics. So i will not talk about it. It was superb.
Range - it was 820 KM round trip and from 100% SOC to 5% I got 532 km range. Occasionally crossed 100 kmph. Drove between 80-95 kmph. AC was on all the time. Drove on Default Mode. This range is more than my expectations so no range anxiety will be there in future trips.

Charging Infrastructure- No bad experience, charged at Old Rao Hotel Bhiwadi (statiq 60 kwh) and WTP Jaipur (Adani 60 kwh). It was seamless. The time we spent in ordering and eating our breakfast, the car was charged to go.

Overall Experience- so far very good except heart breaking AC failure issue.

Some Pics of this trip

[SLK]

Originally Posted by sri_tesla

XUV700 EV(XUV e8) was supposed to launch before XEV 9e, but Mahindra pulled in the launch of XEV 9e, maybe not to cannibalize the sales of XUV700 for the time being.

Unless e8 is a front wheel drive only, there doesn't seem to be enough space to put in a 3rd row with the rear motor.

[Arteberus]

Originally Posted by Sanwal Chandra

Attachment 2747697

I tried my best and couldnt find/remove the plastic cover. This is the view i am getting right now. Is yours clearer than this?

It’s slightly brighter than this image - somehow the camera doesn’t capture it super clearly.

[sdeepak29]

Thank you, TBHPian purohitanuj, for the detailed and informative video - well done!

I had a couple of questions after watching it:

1. Charging Cycles:
You mentioned covering 2000 km with just 4 charging cycles. That’s quite impressive! Could you shed some light on your charging strategy and route planning? Unless you’ve secretly discovered regenerative teleportation, I’d love to know how you pulled that off.

2. Insect Splatter on Highways:
On long highway drives, insect splatter tends to be a recurring nuisance, especially on the front fascia, windshield and ORVMs. Do you think it’s still worth investing in a PPF for a white-colored car, given that such marks may not be as visually prominent? Or will a ceramic coating suffice?

Sharing the video link here for reference:

https://youtu.be/s6CymWsuboc

Looking forward to your insights!

[masterkjn]

I am kind of confused between auto hold/auto regen/parking brake/one pedal drive. They seem to have overlapping functionalities. When trying to park in tight spaces with a slope - what is best to use. In ICE cars i was simply putting into R or D mode and the car didnt roll in the opposite slope direction. With electric car how do i replicate this i.e slope downwards but i want to roll the car slightly upwards without pressing accelerator?

[vattyboy]

Originally Posted by ACM

This is about my experience with multiple Mahindra Dealers during the Booking Process of Both Thar Roxx and XEV 9E.

Nope, neither has yet been delivered. Planning to cancel all my bookings with Mahindra.

The facts speak for themselves:

A hell lot of effort man!
And for what? -
"Only to become a beta tester of these niggle prone initial batches of Mahindra Ev's ".

I would not touch Mahindra's initial batch of vehicles even if they paid me money.

Let me give you a reality check, Dealers are taking a lot of advantage of these long waiting lists for cars, they tend to forcefully sell high insurance quotations and accessories along with cars and straightforwardly tell customers that they will allot the car only when the customer is agreed on above 2 points otherwise they have 100 of people in line who will budge.

When I bought Creta, I wanted to be real here, I bought it in 2 days without any waiting period by accepting the Dealer's high insurance quotation ( approx 35 to 40k more than the market rate), I know this is wrong and we should not encourage these practices but this is how it goes in India whether automobile field or other fields (You pay money to get the things done faster).

[pepega]

Originally Posted by EVBOSS

50% NCB transferred from old corolla
Insurance company -TATA AIG
Amount paid 70000.
Insist on self-insurance and don't succumb to pressure. You are at liberty to take insurance from anyone.

I wasn't aware that you could transfer the NCB from old car to a new car. That sounds like a great way to reduce the insurance cost of a new vehicle for good drivers.

What is the process for the same? Thank you.

Originally Posted by ACM

This is about my experience with multiple Mahindra Dealers during the Booking Process of Both Thar Roxx and XEV 9E.

Nope neither are yet delivered. Planning to cancel all my bookings with Mahindra.

That's the reason I am not ready to play Mahindra's booking game. Booked > Wait for months > Cancel.

Customers are just providing Mahindra with cash, while Mahindra gives them nothing in return. I am not ready to make a booking until I see the car in front of me and I want to take it home in under a week.

[Pashin]

The mindset of car manufacturers and dealers in India continues to baffle me. On one hand, they're more than willing to offer steep discounts and bend over backwards to clear out unsold inventory or move an unpopular model. But on the other hand, when it comes to popular vehicles, the attitude shifts completely — suddenly, they’re disinterested, even dismissive, operating on the assumption that “if not this customer, someone else will buy it.”

A recent example: a friend bought an MG Windsor — a car in high demand. Not only did he receive zero discount, but he wasn’t even offered a token freebie, despite spending nearly ₹50,000 on accessories. Not even a ₹1,000 item was thrown in.

What’s the end goal here? Why make the buying experience unpleasant for a loyal customer just because the product is in demand? If anything, this contradicts the very essence of brand-building — which is to make your customer feel valued, not dispensable.

[manishk123]

Originally Posted by ACM

This is about my experience with multiple Mahindra Dealers during the Booking Process of Both Thar Roxx and XEV 9E.

Seriously Mahindra has the worst customer service experience ever. I have been to their Chowpaty showroom in Mumbai thrice for a test drive, but they never have a car available. They take down my details and promise to call back when the car is available, but it never happens.

Its a good thing their products are selling by themselves otherwise with such an experience this company won't survive in today's competitive environment.

[SLK]

Can anyone confirm if the car charges like this? DID and gear knob stay on! forever.

[ADI7YAK]

Originally Posted by SLK

Can anyone confirm if the car charges like this? DID and gear knob stay on! forever.

Even my Kona charges like this. Gear knob (buttons in my case) and the screen doesn’t stay on forever but certainly does for a few minutes. It also turns on when car’s high voltage battery is charging the auxiliary battery. Ideally instrument cluster should show battery percentage and power in kW but apart from that it is not uncommon or strange in my opinion.

Edit : Looks like entire driver’s display is staying on to show a tiny charger gun symbol on the leftmost part of the screen as seen in this

video

.

[JETA1]

Got a call from the Mahindra service centre a few days back about a recall for the small lead-acid battery in my car. So I dropped by the showroom today. Turns out, only a few cars are affected — and mine happens to be one of them.

They took out the old Exide battery and replaced it with an Amaron Flo 60. Sounds simple, but it wasn’t. Swapping the battery isn’t as straightforward as you’d think — there’s a bit of know-how and some background programming involved. Even the technician was figuring things out since it was new for him too.

After fitting the new battery, they had to do some programming for about 30 minutes — without that, stuff like the AC wasn’t working.

All in all, good on Mahindra for being proactive and trying to sort things out. But honestly, their training needs work. Right now, it feels like the workshop guys are learning as they go — and we’re kind of the test subjects.

[Arteberus]

Originally Posted by v.ak

Can you send a pic of the projector area to show how it looks without the plastic please? I am confused if it's plastic or the actual protector itself that I can see. But there are a lot of scratches and it looks dirty as well now.

Apologies it took me some time to- here is a pic

[ProfDK]

Originally Posted by evhead

Long Post:

I see many people complaining about low range, when they try to drive their EV at more than 120 Kmph. This is my attempt to bring some clarity.

I have been driving for more than 25 years, and enjoyed the evolution of auto industry (and Indian highways) to the fullest. :-). During these years I have had multiple cars with different engines / fuels / transmission etc. Each of these behave differently with respect to mileage when you push them hard.

First Generation Swift: 5 gears, petrol, naturally aspirated. On cruising it gives 16kmpl, but when pushed it gives 10 kmpl.
XUV 500: 6 Gears, Diesel. Gives something like 20 to 30% lesser mileage. Not as bad as petrol.
Creta Turbo Petrol: 7DCT. Cruising 16 kmpl, Pushing 10 kmpl (As good as Swift mileage, but far more power and bigger car!!)

As you see, the results on pushing varies based on multiple technological choices that you make. But one common denominator is the air resistance at higher speed. THIS WILL BRING YOUR MILEAGE DOWN, irrespective of the car you drive!! (based air drag coefficient of course).

So EV is not behaving way different against ICE cars in this aspect. You WILL get disproportionately lesser mileage if you hit more than 100 kmph. The reason you are very worried is your range anxiety and not the mileage itself. You should not be choosing EV (for now, things are changing fast). if you are very very range anxious.

In summary, chose your horse wisely. Do not choose RE and complain that its not like KTM Duke (a more pronounced analogy).

Firstly
The way I see it.

Firstly I own an Atto 3 Dynamic and have done 3000+ kms. Have owned 4 diesels (Tata Indica * 2, Sunnyz, Dezire) and 5 Petrols (Fiat, Santro, Grand i10, Magnite, Creta). Still have the magnite as our secondary car. Had a plan to replace magnite to a primary car but the Atto3 took the place deservingly.

EVs are new to some but some facts..
- Norway has 95% of its cars as EVs
- China the largest auto market of the world and already has 35% EVs.

So the thought that EVs are new tech.. Pish tosh!!

Now my observations

1. EVs are super high tech. Mahindra always differentiated itself on Power compromising on mileage (aka Range). So 228 BHP is delivered by a 210HP motor (or 156.6 kW). That means this motor at it peak can potentially drain the 59 kWh battery in
23 minutes and the 79 kWh battery in 30 minutes flat. You can do the math further that this would give a range of just 250km (you can say the minimum range) on the 79kWh and just under 100km for the 59 kWh pack.

2. Mahindra loaded the car with a huge battery, but also added bulk (79 kWh battery needs space) and power.. but range communication is not for the fast and furious but the smooth crawler. It's a kind of an Oxymoron.. the power is unreliable doing a 0-100 sprint in 7 secs.. But the range.. for this bulk and the spirited motor can only be achieved by mild super eco driving SAD.. but yeah this is what guns and butter means

3. Range shouldn't be a surprise. The EVs for decades give you enough feedback to align your driving to your desired range. My average on my Atto3 was 12 kWh per 100 km giving me a 415knm range for first 2k kms. And now I made a small experiment. Since Monday I start of 10 min early from home, sparingly using AC, opening the sunroof 1 notch and enjoying the morning breeze etc.
Result : Achieved 9.7 kWh On empty road stretches I can cruise of 4-8 kWh per 100 kms keeping a light pedal to counter the Regen. That means 515 km range on a car that has a range of ARAI 468 and NEDC 410.

It's not the EVs that have to mature but us who have to learn (rather balance our expectations).

Also Mahindra chose an LFP battery (from BYD the world leader in EVs and also the designer of Atto3) which is cheaper but bulkier. The natural choice for performance EVs is NMC/NMA which are performance oriented and compact (er). The result is the bulk and you can guess the compromises and resultant performance..

What say??

[v.ak]

Originally Posted by ProfDK

Firstly
The way I see it.



What say??

One additional callout I would like to make is, while NMC is less bulky and performance oriented, what I understand is NMC has to be kept at max 80% SOC for battery longevity and sometimes even to avoid cell depreciation and warranty matters. That effectively makes the 20% useless for uses unless the user is not worried about battery life and cell depreciation over time due to constant full charge. It's a catch 22