Bought a Tata Tiago EV as my first car: Experience after 2 months

I've started to realize that people simply don't notice the car because it makes no noise at all.

BHPian marcussantiago recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Just bought my first car, and it's an EV!

Boring backstory (feel free to skip):

I've never owned a car before. I've been riding bikes all this time and felt I didn't need a car in a place as crowded as Delhi. My wife was happy with her scooter, I'm happy with my bike, and we don't have kids. So it didn't seem necessary.

However, since I work from home and my wife has to commute to her office daily, safety became a bit of a concern. Riding a scooter daily has its drawbacks, like exposure to weather (too hot in summer, too cold in winter, it rains sometimes, and of course the dust pollution). So she wanted a car.

While I'm purely a biker and not really into cars apart from binging episodes of Top Gear / Grand Tour, I was reluctant at the idea. So we laid down some ground rules. She wasn't going to budge on an automatic. Which I agreed since she'll be doing a lot of driving in rush hour traffic. I insisted on a car that's safe and ideally as small as possible, since we don't need a land yacht and Delhi traffic can be a hassle, along with parking in tight spots.

Why the EV?

Long story short, I kept coming back to the tantalizing idea of owning an EV. Checked out many options and none of them really ticked enough boxes on our list. Our first choice was the Honda Jazz because three different close friends of ours owned them in the past and gave absolutely stellar rave long-term ownership reviews. Two of them had to get rid of it because of Delhi's scrappage scam-- I mean, scheme. So that was a no-brainer, with Honda's legendary reliability and all.

BUT. Honda went and discontinued the Jazz and WRV right as we were interested in shopping around. Heartbreak.

My wife then fell in love with the Honda Amaze. I wasn't a fan of its looks, but once I got past that, the problem was its size. I really felt like a small hatch is best for our needs, and the Amaze is definitely not in that category.

I liked the i20 simply because of its mad looks and snazzy interior. My wife hated it specifically because of its mad looks and snazzy interior. So that was out.

Meanwhile, this entire time, a dark and tantalizing thought kept lurking in my mind. What if I went electric? But right off the bat, there's not many good options.

Or were there? The Tiago EV dropped and I felt much like a deer in headlights. My wife was not too impressed at first.

Finally, we had a long discussion about it and I basically got her to agree to at least give it a chance. Let's just check it out in person and see for ourselves. Bear in mind, the main reason to buy a car was for her use, not mine, so I acquiesced and told her the final decision would be hers alone.

(A little bit about my wife: We're total opposites. She's level-headed, street-smart, very laid-back and not prone to impulsive decisions. Meanwhile I'm the opposite. I suspect she married me purely for the entertainment value of living with a man-child, or perhaps she lost a bet. It's a mystery, and I've given up trying to figure it out. Now back to the story.)

The "Shut Up and Take My Money" Meme Moment:

So we went for a test drive. And next thing I know, my usually calm, careful, methodical head-before-heart wife was dropping the booking money then and there. Eight weeks later we had the power charging point installed and the car parked downstairs. We went for the second-from-the-top end model, the long range one. The top model is identical, the only difference is that you get a fast charging point installed at your home rather than a slow-charger (which is what we went for).

Of course it was a bit overwhelming, since we're new not just to EVs but cars in general. We're still learning to drive but getting better at it daily. And we had the usual range-anxiety-freakout that appears to be a normal thing for EV owners at first, now we don't worry about it at all.

The overall sales experience was a breeze. Of course, as total car newbies we have no real frame of reference here, but there were no hassles or complications. When we booked it, our sales guy told us it would be six to eight weeks. And sure enough, eight weeks later it was home. Simple as that.

Being an "Early" Adopter

Of course, no matter how much research you do and advice you seek, buying a car always comes with at least some unknowns. There's no guarantee that you will never face any problems. And many friends advised me against an EV, but ultimately it just made the most sense overall.

There's a Catch-22 situation with EVs. They're still considered new and untested, so a lot of people won't buy them. But then because a lot of people won't buy them, EVs are considered new and untested. It's a closed loop.

The whole Climate Change / Environmentalism thing, a Quick Rant:

I want to point out that I've been yelling about climate change since 1996, and rode a bicycle everywhere through my 20s because environment blah blah blah. I still think it's easily one of the biggest problems humanity faces as a species and threatens our very survival.

But I'll be honest, that's not why I went for an EV. At least, it's not very high on the list. Ultimately, it was the hassle of high fuel costs, the scrappage policies, and the fact that I'm not mechanically savvy enough that I'll get ripped off by mechanics and such.

EVs are polarizing politically, because on one end of the spectrum, you got people who yell about how EVs are a scam, they're not "real" cars, the battery causes a ton of environmental destruction and are not recyclable and whatnot. And on the other end of the spectrum, you got the hippie types with stars in their eyes that think EVs will single-handedly stop climate change or something. And both are wrong.

As someone wiser than I said it best: the EV isn't here to save the world. It's here to save the car. That's all. It's just one of a million steps we need to take to combat climate change. And yes, the battery is problematic when you consider things like lithium mining in inhumane conditions and whatnot.

Political rant over, back to the car and more lighthearted bits lol.

The Ridiculous Questions I've Been Asked

Probably the most unexpected part of buying an EV was the level of almost hilarious ignorance from friends / family / co-workers.

I mean I get it, EVs are not perfect. Range anxiety, battery issues, lack of charging infrastructure, the purely subjective thing of whether it feels like driving a "real" car or not, all that stuff. And that's fair, and we shouldn't sugar-coat EVs as though they're some magical solution to the world's problems or anything. We should be pragmatic and skeptical in all things, as always.

BUT!

Some of the things I've heard made me and my wife laugh and roll our eyes.

A sampling:

• "But what if it rains?" Okay, seriously? It's not a laptop, it's as weatherproof as any other vehicle. Do people really think a light drizzle would cause the car to short-circuit and die like a phone being dropped into a swimming pool or something? And these are college-educated people saying stuff like this with a serious face. Hilarious.

• "Won't it run up your electricity bill?" Have these people never filled a tank of petrol and noticed how much it costs? What's going on in their minds here. Yes, it does add to your electricity bill, but even the most die-hard EV-hating petrolhead would grudgingly admit that it's not even close to the cost of petrol, especially here in India.

• "What if it breaks down?" Apparently petrol cars never, ever break down either? I don't know what to tell you. I'm no mechanical expert but it's a simple hard fact that EVs have much simpler engines, far less moving parts, it's about as simple as a motor can get, mechanically. That said, the battery is more prone to causing problems, of course. But my point is, no car is so perfect that it would never break down ever. Ultimately, this falls under the "it's a risk but we can't predict the future" part of our decision-making.

• "But it's untested technology" Well yes, but... also no, not really. Electric cars were invented before the petrol engine. And while it's relatively new for ordinary consumers to buy electric cars, it's a technology that's been around for longer than people think, and there's a big incentive for automotive giants to invest heavily into it. There's a strong drive to keep improving the technology and charging. Every major carmaker worth their salt is putting out practical EVs now. Not just for an arguably fringe group trying to make a statement (like when the Prius first came out) but for the common man.

• "What if you have power cuts?" Sure, but we don't drive so much that we need to recharge it every single night. With our usage, we only need to charge it around once or twice a week. And just like with our phones and laptops, we tend not to let the battery run down to below half before we charge it again. We don't get many power cuts anyway in our neighborhood so we don't see this as a problem. As a bonus, there's a fast charging station right in our neighborhood, so we could use that if there's an issue charging at home and get it topped up within 50 minutes.

• "Doesn't it drain the battery heavily when using the AC?" I mean technically it does, but it's actually better in an EV, because you can crank up the AC even if you're not driving, it makes little difference. Compare with petrol cars where if you use the AC and electronics heavily without the engine running you risk draining the battery. So it's actually better.

The Tiago EV Experience So Far (Just Under Two Months In):

Honestly, it's been great. Now the car's still kind of brand new, so of course this is the honeymoon period where everything's awesome.

Pros and Cons:

• Range anxiety was a thing at first. When the battery was at 75% I was panicking and wanted to charge it up. But eventually the wife and I realized this was silly, since we don't drive long distances anyway (that's what our bike is for, a Kawasaki Vulcan) and there's plenty of range for our uses at any time. I did really careful calculations of the range and distances we were doing because I was paranoid that the battery could be faulty, since I've heard many horror stories about EVs. But ultimately it's fine. So far it seems we get somewhere between 150 and 200 km range, which is about as expected, especially considering the Delhi summer heat and AC usage, and that we're still learning to drive, so it would probably improve as we drive better and the weather cools later this year.

• That torque though. I've heard about EVs having insane torque right from zero, and now I know for myself that it's not hype. It's just lovely. I know the Tiago isn't meant to be some Tesla-killer or sporty monster like the Kia EV6 (which makes me drool), after all it's an economical hatchback and the cheapest EV from Tata's range. But it was still surprising.

• It's cheap, but not cheap-feeling. Again, I'm no petrolhead, being a biker primarily. But one thing I'm really loving about the Tiago is that nothing on it feels cheap. It's just nice all around, great sound system, decent array of features, it all feels like a good place to be in. I didn't think I'd like driving so much!

• And finally, a weird quirk I'm noticing slowly: It's almost too quiet. I've started to realize that people simply don't notice the car because it makes no noise at all. I tend never to use the horn except in absolute emergencies, so I'm training myself to honk more often, especially when pedestrians are walking around oblivious.

• Meanwhile, inside the car, the driving experience is a little strange-- not because it's so quiet inside, but because you more clearly hear the tyres and A/C running and it seems louder than it should be. Others have pointed this out too. But friends and family have pointed out how quiet it is and were impressed.

Well that was my coffee-fueled rant. I look forward to writing a more long-term review once I've lived with this strange cute car for a little longer than two months.

Thanks for reading!

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