1.0 Exterior | 1.0 Comfort | 1.0 Performance |
1.0 Fuel Economy | 1.0 Value for Money |
Exterior Light weight fiber clad body, with weird shape. Smaller & flimsier than nano.
Interior (Features, Space & Comfort) Cramped, struggle to get to back seat, as it is only 2 doors. Lousy entertainment system. Fit and finish is not good. Seats feel as if you are sitting on a iron bench (very hard, without proper cushioning). Weird sitting posture that needs driver to sit cross legged. The car starts rattling within a month!
Engine Performance, Fuel Economy and Gearbox Under powered motor, sufficient for regular city traffic. But, don't you dare to park it in steep inclines - it won't pull. Even if you have to climb a steep incline, you need some runway to gain speed.
No gearbox - as it is a automatic (as all electrics are). Fuel economy is great, but is marred by cost of battery replacement every 3-5years. It'll cost you Rs.1,80,000/- to replace battery.
Ride Quality & Handling Horrible. It is like a breadbox on the move. Ok, in slower speeds but has huge body roll in faster speeds. Break is spongy (vaccum breaks) and not precise. Steering too is not very precise (I have a electric power steering model).
Going above 50km speed is very risky.
Small body makes for easy manuevering and parking. But that's true of any small car and this is not much smaller than a alto or eon.
Warranty Mahindra provides only 3 year, 36,000km guarantee on the car & battery!! That must be the lowest warranty offered by any car manufacturer. The only way you can get a 5Year 60,000km warranty is to go for the battery lease scheme. Under this scheme again you get worst deal - You keep paying Rs.3000/month for 5 years, at the end of which you don't have a battery!! You will need to renew the scheme continuing to pay more money to Mahindra (even if the battery is very well).
If you outright buy the battery, then the upfront cost goes up by Rs.1,80,000/- But, you will also have to buy extended warranty if you want coverage for 5 years. That's another Rs. 16,000+.
Nissan provides a 8year 150,000km warranty on its Lithium Ion batteries. Clearly, Mahindra is not confident about the life of its Lithium-ion battery (which is apprrently some chinese made battery).
Final Words E2O is a horrible vehicle. I started having problems on day 2. It stopped due to a blown fuse and they had to come and fix it. Then about a week later the water jet in the wiper stopped working. In about a month I was having squeaking sound (like spring noise) fron rear (perhaps suspension).
The Entertainment system is so poor - it is laughable. Just having a LCD screen doesn't mean anythign if it doesn't provide good sound, allow good menu selection feature (you can't properly go through the folde structure of USB MP3). The navigation system is poor. Overall seem slike a cheap, rotten chinese system put in just to tick-mark a 'feature'.
There is zero possibility of putting additional speakers or sub-woofer in the car as space & fixing are constrained - thus you are stuck with what they have given, and that is very bad indeed.
Only reason to buy this car - THIS IS THE ONLY ELECTRIC CAR ON SALE.
Everything else is horrible.
Add to this : The seller Mahindra-Reva has a very unethical sales practice. They keep a high ex-showroom price, and sell it at deep discounts depending on how well one can bargain. If you can't bargain you'll be cheated by the salesfolk. They sell the car at their showroom price to anything upto 1.5Lakh discount.
Now there is a new Govt. incentive program which provides Rs.1,24,000/- discount. But, they were giving Rs.1,50,000/- discounts in Feb/March, even without govt. assistance. With govt. assistance the price of the vehicle should have come down by atlest 2lakhs, but it hasn't. They have apparently not passed on the entire govt. subsidy benefit to users, instead just adjusted against the discounts they were providing earlier. The end user price didn't really come down.
So, if you want to buy a electric vehicle, since E2O is the only choice - buy it - only if the company offers Minimum of 1lakh rupee discount, after factoring in Govt. incentive program. Otherwise explicitly tell the folks that you are not willing to be cheated like so many before - where people bought their product at a price, only to realize they overpaid.
Areas of improvement Almost all! Mahidnra should start providing value for money. Not push some cheapo product at high price. This car is simply not worth the money they charge. It may be worth it if it costs about 4.5lakhs with battery (not lease). They can do it, because leave out the battery & drivetrain, the car doesn't have any expensive stuff. Thermoformed fiber body, welded struss-chassis, not well annointed cabin - are all indicative of massive cost cutting.
If they can fix all these, provide plush interior, fantastic entertainment system, good quality components (Suspension especially) then perhaps, it can be a VFM product at the current price.
And they should simply stop their deceptive pricing/selling practices, where they hit each customer for maximum he'd shell out. Instead hold clear pricing, without massive discounts. The guys who don't get discount are effectively cheated - as their car value came down the moment they came out of showroom.
Recommendation Wait for a better company to offer a better electric vehicle. Nissan may launch leaf in a year or so.
If your need is for a small car with automatic drive - go for Alto AMT or celerio. Same pricepoint you get far better offering.
If you are deadly passionate about saving environment - buy E2O after bargaining heavily. In fact make them desperate to sell you the car, and stick to a demand of a minimum of Rs.1 Lakhs discount on their ex-showroom price (which already reflects govt. subsidy).
ElectricAll elese.