Attended 2 more events organised by a Tata EV showroom: My experience

I really love these events and meetups organized by Evolve (and their EV stores). Hope there will be a lot of them in future too.

BHPian thomahawk recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

Tata Evolve

Evolve is a Tata EV owners community, and as a member, one gets invites to events hosted by various Tata EV stores along with some benefits like premium dining discounts etc. Since the communities are focused on EV stores and member meetups, it lacks the usefulness of something like what Ather has (a forum). Maybe this is in their pipeline, but I haven't heard anything about it.

I received an invite soon after I bought my Tiago, but it was dead until they opened two EV stores in Kochi. I received a promotional message through WhatsApp for a breakfast drive and I went ahead and registered for it. The next day, I got a call from Ashley, who is leading the Evolve community programs at their Edapally store. He added me to their WhatsApp group and since then I have attended 2 more events at their Edapally store.

Breakfast Drive

Read about this in my previous post.

Pictures of the event (these are official photographs by the organizers photography team - I didn't capture any):

The event started a little late, but there was something to keep the little ones occupied:

There was a mix of both old and new EVs:

Except for the Tigor and the new Curvv, the convoy had all EV models from Tata and it drew a lot of attention on the route:

The elder brother leading the little one:

At the destination:

Charging Workshop

Apart from drives, Evolve organizes sessions to educate EV owners about maintaining their EVs, charging etc. I attended a workshop about charging (there was another one about maintenance at the same time at their Kalamassery store). It was a classroom session conducted by a Tata SME from their Bangalore office.

He covered a range of topics including the different types of chargers (personal vs. community, AC vs DC, vendors etc.), charging best practices, the plug-share-like functionality being built by Tata, the charging aggregator feature which will be soon available in iRA.EV app, and insights from the analytical data pulled from the cars. He said Kerala has the highest adoption rate for EVs because most houses are independent (hence owners have no problem getting a charger installed) and that solar plants are very common in the state which keeps the running costs minimal.

He also credited the popular 'EVOK' community, the only one of its kind in India, whose members have been helping each other out. I was quite amused to learn that the DC chargers are used very little in the state (probably because most charge overnight at home).

He was even patient enough to hear about concerns that didn't fall into his expertise. Ashley had to bring in a knowledgeable sales advisor since there were too many off-topic questions. It was quite clear that sales and service teams had shared conflicting information with them and most were quite confused. What made the whole session more interesting were the tidbits shared by owners like one can take the legal route to get a charger installed, if an association is against getting an EV charger installed etc. Also, it seemed quite a lot of them were EVOK members and knew how to use the fallback mechanism for unlocking charging gun etc.

They wrapped up the session with refreshments (quite a spread for a snack pack) and a quick demo of the store's DC charger. I think one can attend these sessions for networking alone and it is always interesting to hear about the stories and experiences others have to share.

Festive Special - Sustainable Crafting Workshop

It seems the stores will be hosting some kind of event every month, and the last one I attended was a crafting workshop. Missus and my little ones were very enthusiastic about this one. Ashley also brought in a service manager for answering any technical questions, if one was feeling creatively challenged to participate in the crafting workshop.

Again the photographs are by the official event photographer - I spent the time hearing stories shared by fellow owners.

How hard it can be? I didn't find out :

I thought my wife would make me one of these nice little bags, but they were just making coasters:

I killed time walking around the showroom, checking out demo cars:

Windsor hit you hard, didn't it?:

I didn't want to look at Punch much since I always felt guilty about not waiting for this one. This is indeed the new Wagon-R:

The dealer had a customized Curvv EV parked in front. It was drool-worthy:

I see what you did there - budget Urus:

After a couple of hours, they wrapped up the workshop with refreshments and a potted plant (this time in Ceramic; we got a plastic pot during the breakfast drive and shared feedback about that. They seem to take all the feedback seriously). We were happy with the event and thanked Ashely for being a great host.

I really love these events and meetups organized by Evolve (and their EV stores). Hope there will be a lot of them in future too; I think this could even be a great differentiator for the brand, since Tata seems to be serious about this.

Note: If you are a Tata EV owner (from around Kochi), and would like to know more about Evolve, go ahead and contact the PoC at Tata EV Edapally (+91 8289915316).

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.