There’s a lot of news rushing in from the automobile sector. Nonetheless, the government and the finance minister have been trying very hard to lift up the terrible automobile slump that is going on in the Indian economy. Not only have it brought down sales to a significant level, it has also rendered multitudes off their jobs.
Some time back, the govt had planned on shifting the automobile sector towards electric vehicles. In a big push towards this, the Indian govt has taken multiple steps like cutting taxes for EVs. In The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways announced that all electric vehicles would be exempted from paying the road taxes for vehicle registration or renewal of the same.
It has been found out that the Union govt has placed its initial orders with Hyundai Motor Co. for the Kona electric compact sport-utility vehicle.
Govt Chooses Hyundai Over M&M and Tata Motors
The government’s largest electric vehicle (EV) procurement programme, run by state-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) had initially put up an order for 10,000 electric cars from Tata Motors and M&M, in September 2017. The ratio of the sedans was 60:40.
However, complaints about Tata Motors’ EV Tigors and M&M’s e-Verito from senior government officials, citing poor performance and low mileage have pushed the government to go for Hyundai Motor Co.’s electric vehicle Kona.
Its widely known too that the EESL faces bottleneck situation right now due to issues like vehicle quality and a lack of demand. Only 500 Tigors have been supplied by Tata Motors to EESL so far, while M&M has delivered 1,000 e-Veritos. EESL now plans to limit the final order to around 3,000 cars by March 2020 amid an economic slowdown.
The main problem concerning Tigor included issues related to AC cooling, pick-up, sudden battery discharge and inability to charge. EESL also mentioned that Tata Motors wasn’t taking any sincere steps to resolve these issues, causing delay and leading to customer dissatisfaction.
What is It About Kona?
Like we said, the government has placed initial orders with Hyundai’s Kona electric vehicle, whilst first getting a disappointed result from Tata Motors Ltd’s Tigor and Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd’s e-Verito electric sedans.
The preference for the Kona is despite the vehicle’s price tag of ?23.71 lakh post government subsidies, which is about double the price of Tigor and e-Verito.
On a single charge, the Kona can travel up to 452km, having a 39.2 kWh advanced lithium polymer battery. The other two cars have less than 20kWh batteries, making its battery size almost three times that of the other two cars. The running cost is just 40 paisa/km.
In fact, Power and renewable energy minister Raj Kumar Singh and NTPC chairman and MD Gurdeep Singh have started using the Kona, which went on sale in July. Top officials at policy think tank NITI Aayog too are keen to use the vehicle.
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