Owning a Tata Nexon EV Max: Mixed feelings after 2 years & 28,000 km

I have a mixed feeling of owning an EV and the negative side of that mixed feeling is only because I have a Tata EV.

BHPian rkmunjuluri recently shared this with other enthusiasts:

There have been many updates from a lot of people on the EV Max and like most of them I have mixed feelings about it.

So, I would like to focus my 2 years ownership little differently and hope this brings a different spin to how we approach the EV car purchase and Ownership decisions.

Please note that I bought this under company car lease program as the only car in my garage, so I maintain an exhaustive excel file with a lot of details on my travel. That helped in giving you most of the numbers you see below.

Let us start with the Not so good aspects of Owning an EV as the only car in the garage. (I will touch on the Tata Experience as well)

PLANNING, PLANNING AND MORE PLANNING, STILL THINGS GO WRONG.

You cannot do any spontaneous road trips like the ICE vehicles. You need to draft a plan A, alternate Plan B and then if that fails Plan C. But I had seen all these thrown out of window by mother nature and the government authorities, whom no one can predict.

So, if you are not a person who likes planning a lot, then buying EV 4-wheeler

Power Failures due to bad weather, Power Failures due to Political rallies, Power failures due to political parties going on rampage, charging space hogged as parking space by both EV and non-EV cars, charging finished, but car not disconnected from charger and owner is no where to be found. You name the usual and unusual issue with public chargers, and I am sure I had encountered it myself or seen being encountered by a fellow EV Owners enroute.

As per my calculation on all the 25 highway trips collectively we had wasted 76.5 hours between all passengers waiting for the car to finish its meal. So, a little more than 3 days, which could have been used for a whole Holiday in itself. Plus, there will be situations where those 15 mins, 30 mins more wait time will feel like an eternity due to the continuous nagging and taunting.

TATA CARS FIT AND FINISH + THE INFAMOUS SERVICE CENTERS = ONE HELL OF A CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

If you get a car which has great fit and finish, no issues with electricals, no paint problem, no panel gap issues that means you have done an astounding number of good deeds in the past 3 incarnations and have been blessed with all the good karma during this TATA Car purchase.

From day 1, I had identified so many imperfections that I had made peace with all of them now, after the Service center personnel workload and attitude

For example - one small imperfection with the housing of infotainment, was promised will be fixed during each free service and was never done. Finally, after escalating it to the customer service with proofs of job cards, false promise messages over what’s app multiple times, it was finally fixed after 18 months of ownership. I tried to be patient for a long time, and it only started moving in the right direction after I blasted their CRM after almost 16.5 months of ownership when he said I will have to pay for this. (Clearly a manufacturing defect which they didn’t fix from 1st service onwards and captured clearly in all job cards as well)

So, in case issue is sorted without even follow ups and proactively by service centers, then your good deeds from past 5 incarnations are paying up.

What is a Unicorn? – A TATA EV without Battery issues.

I haven’t seen a Unicorn, as in reality they do not exist. So, I had my share of battery niggles but thankfully because of the awesome community in what’s app Bangalore, I was well prepared and addressed the issue in such a way that the service center couldn’t give excuses and delay opening a job card for the battery issue. Luckily, there were no dramas after this, and things went smoothly as the SA was a new guy with hyper enthusiasm and willingness to be proactive. SA kept me updated at each step with at least a one liner on what’s app.

If you don’t face any issue with the Battery in a Tata EV, then all your past Incarnations good deeds have done paying up.

SERVICE COSTS + MODIFICATIONS

For everything and anything, TATA has a warranty related issue and as the EV’s are new and have gained popularity only recently after Tata launched the Nexon EV, they are literally dictating terms.

Want to change the poor headlights for better Visibility, DON’T warranty will be Void. Want to Install Dashcam for your safety, DON’T warranty will be void. From the last 6 to 8 months Tata have eased out a bit and are procuring such products and are saying we can make those modifications in our cars. But I am just waiting for another year to pass by and then dive into it as it will be 3 years old car and I will get the itch to do upgrade to it.

Service intervals for Tata EV’s I feel are a joke. It is 6 months or 7500 kms which ever happens early. Again, if you don’t follow this schedule WARRANTY can be denied. You have no other choice than to use the Tata service centers as the technology is new and you don’t want to gamble with the knowledge of outside mechanics to handle so many electronics. (May be after another 5 to 7 years we can find private multi brand EV car service centers)

So far, I had spent INR 15,468 on 3 Free + 2 Paid services. Free services cost me INR 3,656 and the paid ones INR 11,812. I could have saved some money by not opting for their interior and exterior cleaning services + wheel balancing and Tyre rotation. If you remove those maybe you will save probably another INR 3,500 including taxes.

But from my point of view, these costs are on the higher side as even without the additional INR 3,500 I paid, we still are shelling out around INR 42 paisa per km as service cost. (INR 12,000/28,000 KMS)

I think most of the Hyundai and Maruti Suzuki ICE cars will fall in this bracket. So, I really do not see that service intervals/service costs will be added advantage of EV’s, at least tata EV’s as of now.

I haven’t faced this myself but heard from many fellow owners in the what’s app group that these Low resistant Tyre are prone to punctures more and side wall bursts are many common. Many have posted about these and shared their ordeal, fortunately for me I never had to face this so far. Keeping fingers crossed it remains that way forever.

Now coming to the good aspects, some of these are because of EV and some are because of the investments I have made after purchasing the EV.

COST SAVINGS ON FUEL EXPENSES

Big question of how much did we save by buying and EV? INR 165,946, for the 28K Kms. Again, this is in comparison to the 2012 model Wagon R which I borrowed from my father and was using till we got the Nexon EV Max. Wagon R used to give me around 13 KMPL in Bangalore crawling traffic on outer ring road and 16 KMPL on Highway drives.

I had spent INR 39,444.7 only so far for the 28K kms driven, Thanks to various offers from Charging providers and now the 200 units per month scheme in Karnataka.

This is in comparison to INR 205,391.5 I would have spent on fuel if I was still using the Wagon R.

This effectively translates to INR 1.4 per KM in EV against INR 7.3 per KM in ICE. Effectively saving close to INR 6 per KM

I had driven in all 8388 KMS without paying a penny for fuel due to the free offers.

E.g. Recently in May this year Statiq a EV Charging provider offered free charging across all its chargers and partner chargers listed on its app in AP, Telangana and Tamil Nadu. Incidentally, I had to travel to Hyderabad. It was a no brainer to use my car for this journey of 1240 kms door to door. Toll and food accounted for INR 2.2 K, toll being close to INR 1500.

Now if usage is higher, then I would assume this gap only widens more and more. I have seen people touching 50K to 60K kms in one year (not a commercial car), even if we keep the savings to only INR 5 per KM, this is effectively 3 to 4 Lakhs rupees already, effectively paying the price difference between ICE and EV car in one year. Now all the future runs will be just cost savings.

For me what did I do with the money I saved, nothing I had already used it even before I saved it – PPF was INR 85K, extended warranty is INR 62K for 3 Years additional years. In my case, the cost savings will start from now and probably I will be able to recoup the price difference between EV and ICE before the extended warranty expires i.e., in next 4 years.

TYRE REPLACEMENT COSTS, BRAKE PAD COSTS and FINALLY BECOMING A BETTER DRIVER

After the last service where Tyre rotation and wheel balancing were done, I was told my Tyres are good for another 28K kms at least. So, Maybe I will replace the Tyres are 60K or more. I had my share of wheel spins in early days of the ownership, and it would have added to some of the ware and tear that the Tyres had gone through, as now I am used to the power delivery and understand the car much better, I think I can easily push Tyre change till 70K kms.

Due to the regen capability of EV, though all brakes are disc brakes I hardly use them and try to coast and let regen reduce the speed and get it to a halt. This has not only added to the life of brake pads, but I feel I have become a more accomplished driver who can eek out better mileage out of the ICE cars. Why, because I drove a Kushaq of a friend for 70+ kms and the Odo showed for the trip the mileage as around 15.3 KMPL when compared to the lifelong mileage of the car at 13 KMPL. Similarly, a few months ago I had to drive around 300 kms in my fathers Hyundai Venue and again I was surprised to see I was able to beat my fathers 14 KMPL with a 16 KMPL mileage on the 300 kms drive. This was without even deliberately trying to get better mileage.

This is all because of the 2 years of conditioning I had to do to myself and change the way I drive to not throttle hard, to allow coasting and let regen, anticipating red lights, speed bumpers and let the car slow down rather than braking and more to ensure I get those 20 to 30 kms more on those long drives. Not trying to hit 100+ speeds constantly but rather try to be around 85 for most of the time to ensure better performance of battery and hence more mileage on empty stretches. Though we all know all these are possible with ICE cars as well and give us better mileage we don’t usually do it. This is because the difference of those 20 to 30 kms extra can be hitting the charger B or C which is a back up charger or getting stranded on the highway and wait for help and waste 5 to 6 hours. With ICE cars it isn’t that dramatic, so very few people do it.

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT aka SENSE OF PRIDE

I am talking only about the tailpipe emissions while using our 4 wheelers and nothing else. So before bringing up an argument of ICE vs EV total lifecycle pollutions, please read the earlier sentence once more and kill that urge.

My odometer stands at 28160 kms as I am typing this review. This includes 25 trips which involve intercity driving, on National Highways and state highways of South India. As I live in an apartment, I couldn’t invest in rooftop solar, so I did the next best thing to make my travel green, I invested in 0.85 W of Solar energy from Sundaygrids.

• InterCity - 1,461.96 KWH, 11,329 KMS, INR 27,260.72
• IntraCity - 2,591.5 KWH, 16,783 KMS, INR 12,183.98

Out of 2591.5 KWH, I had used for Intracity travel, Sundaygrids investment generated 1937 KWH so far (17th Aug 24). Meaning 75% of my intracity travel has been totally pollution free. I had invested 47K for this and I will be getting solar energy credits till Dec 2036. (Overall, 48% of my Travel is green energy powered)

Additional investment plans in Sunday grids are in pipeline to add another 0.65 W to quickly add more solar power to my kitty and ensure all travels made in my EV car are completely environment friendly.

Current earnings in Sunday Grids and power generated so far as of today.

INCREASE IN CHARGING INFRA AND SINGLE APP ALLOWING CHARGING ACROSS MULTIPLE CHARGING PROVIDERS

When I was searching for a car to replace the Wagon R in end of 2021, ZS EV was under contention but due to the cost and the charging infrastructure I never even considered it. Nexon was completely out of equation at that point with just 30 KW and 200 Kms of real-world range. This is purely because mine is going to be a one car garage and 200 KMS real world range with the charging infra at that point was a huge let down and ZS EV was almost 30 Lakhs on road whereas my budget was max of 20 Lakhs.

As an example, my first highway drive was during early August 2022, just after 32 days of car delivery. The route had only 7 fast chargers and the longest distance where there were no fast/slow chargers was for 260 KMS. Now the same route has 23 fast chargers and the longest distance between 2 fast chargers is max of 80 KMS.

Recently many charging providers are putting in extra effort to integrate other aggregators on to their platforms. Also, TATA and MG have announced their all-in-one apps, which will include this functionality of integrating multiple charging providers. I had first experienced Statiq app which has aggregated 15 different aggregators on to its platform, including itself 16 in all. In my 2 years ownership of EV I had installed and used 17 different charging apps and currently actively use 7 of them and uninstalled 5 (As they were more one time needs).

At one of the statiq chargers and the list of aggregators on its app. Wishing it increases even more by the day.

So, to conclude it all, I have a mixed feeling of owning an EV and the negative side of that mixed feeling is only because I have a Tata EV. If you are a person who is trying to do something towards protecting our environment, I think EV adoption + Installing roof top solar is a great step towards it. If you are not looking to change your second or third car or Bike in the garage, I would humbly request you to consider an EV. With India also trying to push towards more carbon Neutral power generation and trying to move towards that direction rapidly, I think minimum from Tailpipe emissions point of view, we can do our bit.

Leaving you all with my favorite picture of EV Max. At Hirekolale Lake in Chikkamagalur

Read BHPian comments for more insights and information.