Been a nightmare owning the Punch.EV; Faced problems since purchase

The Tata Punch EV is a brilliant car when it works, but my experience has been dreadful.

BHPian eternalshenron1 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

I bought the Tata Punch EV Empowered Plus Long Range model three months ago, and my experience has been nothing short of a nightmare. Ever since the car arrived, it has had significant charging issues. The charging session would intermittently stop, and each time, I had to manually restart it. The car would only charge about 5-10% at a time, which meant it took 10-20 charging sessions to fully charge the car. This problem occurred exclusively with the Tata fast chargers available in my residential area. Since my apartment doesn't allow the installation of a personal charger, this was my only option.

When I reported this issue, they assured me it would be fixed during the first service, but the service centre people simply charged the car on a normal wall charger and claimed the problem was resolved. However, the issue persisted. They took the car again after a couple of days and probably tried the same thing again with no success. They then escalated the complaint to the head of EV in Mumbai and took the vehicle to another service station in Mahape. There, they changed some cabling in the car and assured me the issue was resolved. Yet again, nothing changed, and to add to my frustration, the front DRL lights stopped working after this repair job.

After reporting the persistent problem, it took a month to tell me that the factory was working on a solution and the replacement part was not available. When the part finally arrived, they replaced the same cable again, claiming this time it would definitely resolve the issue. They also replaced the front DRLs. Unsurprisingly, the issue remained unresolved. A week or so later, they sent someone over to my place to try charging it at the same charger where I was facing the issue. They connected a laptop to capture data during the charging interruptions, hoping it would help diagnose the root cause. The data that was captured mentioned a couple of parts heating over the threshold, but the technician didn’t allow me to take a photo and said it would be sent directly to the factory for diagnosis.

A week later, they sent someone to collect the same data again because they had somehow lost the previous data, causing me to skip work. This time my vehicle was already at 85% charge and was able to charge to 100% without interruption (Probably because of slower trickle charging after 80%?). After another week, they said the issue would be resolved via a software update. They updated the software and claimed that the issue was resolved, but this time I refused to take delivery and act as their QC assistant. I insisted that they test charging the vehicle at a similar Tata charging station to verify if the problem was truly fixed. Thankfully, this time the problem was actually resolved. Although I am not sure how they were able to fix overheating with a software update, I am afraid they might have dialed down the charge speed the car is willing to accept. However, this is something that I need to test.

During these initial three months of ownership, another issue emerged where the regenerative braking randomly stopped working. It might not sound like much, but essentially it means that the brakes of the car were unpredictable and were not working as expected. There were times when I would rely on the regen brakes to slow the car but the braking just wasn’t there when I lifted my foot off the accelerator, causing me to make an emergency brake to avoid hitting the car in front. This issue was also resolved with the software update.

Just when I thought all problems were sorted, a few days ago, I faced another major issue. One night, after parking the car and returning to it, the car wouldn’t start. It displayed multiple errors like hill hold error, TPMS error, and low auxiliary battery, and was stuck in park mode and would not even go into neutral. The car was automatically applying the parking brakes, and I was a sitting duck. I tried pressing the SOS button in the car, but it simply said the call failed. Finally, I got a text message from Tata with a number to connect with in case of an emergency. How is this viable during an accident?

Tata roadside assistance arrived after an hour’s wait, tried recharging the auxiliary battery to no avail, and the technician had no idea what to do so he ordered a tow truck. This ordeal happened at 1:30 AM in the rain, and I had to book a cab home without any assistance from Tata. It does hurt to see your new car being towed away.

The car was in the service centre for 8 days and they finally fixed it, said there was some issue with the brake fuse and wiring. Overall, the Tata Punch EV is a brilliant car when it works, but my experience has been dreadful. The car has spent more than 20 days in the service centre in just the initial three months. The frequent service visits have aged the car significantly—the white interiors have turned brown, the steering wheel is stained, the DRL alignment is off, and certain panels have started to rattle. Owning a Tata car has been a disappointing experience, severely impacting my confidence in the vehicle. I wouldn't dare take it on a long drive or let my dad drive it over long distances, defeating the purpose of owning an EV car.

Recently the Punch EV received a 5-star safety rating in crash testing, but another key factor to consider while determining the 'Safety' aspect of a vehicle is its reliability. If a vehicle can leave you stranded in the middle of the road, I will consider it to be a serious safety issue. Generally not something a lot of us consider while making our purchase decisions, but now I've come to learn how important it is. We also have a tendency to think that these are one-off cases and will not happen to us, I used to feel the same way when reading about Tata ownership reviews but now I realize how significantly lacking the Tata ownership experience is.

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