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Earlier this week, I had taken two rides in the BYD E6 cab from Shoffr. Their driver also mentioned the range to be 500. The ride quality was good and the car felt stable at 100+ speeds. Considering it is a 30l car, I felt the interiors could be better. It felt ok for a cab but I wouldn't buy it as a personal vehicle.

The most annoying part was that there was a constant creaking/wind noise from the rear left quarter glass area. I felt it was the luggage making the noise during the first ride, but it happened on the second ride as well in a different car. The driver couldn't figure out what was the issue. Maybe other E6 owners can comment if they have observed this.

Spot on observation, even I loved the length and space when I viewed it parked at my visitor parking but the moment I got in, felt quite a bit of let down with the all black seats and pretty mediocre interiors. Honestly the new Ertiga at 12-13 lacs feels tad bit better in the interior department! The ride quality though, felt absolutely good especially given the condition of the new airport road through Old madras road. I am surprised your shoffr driver tested 100+, mins gave me the KSRTC Airavat sleep like baby experience at a constant 60+, saying they need to ensure every charge is utilised for at least 440 kms. The rattles and the interiors really don’t make this car feel VFM I guess.

I would be interested in buying it , I am looking to get one in the coming months.
Test drove it last month , love the no nonsense functionalities of the car.

Oh yes, even I faced exactly same creaking noise from left rear in shoffr cab 1 week back.
Surprisingly, same car came today with different driver and that sound was not there this time. Only difference was the luggage, today being lighter.

Certainly, interiors are let down.
I tried fiddling with equilizer, sound was coming from only front and the setting too had option to change sound stage only for front. I think rear speakers are not there, no bass.

This particular cab had run for 1.3 lac km, suspension on bad roads are not very comfortable. On good road its optimal. Driver said that they have not observed any drop in mileage in high mileage cars.

In sunny day like today, AC felt weak.
Had to ask driver and he maxed out on blower speed. Did not see if themp was set lower and how much was it.

Regarding Shoffr, seems there is no liimit on speed (like blue smart, 60 kmph) but it is monitored and drivers go till 80 kmph and cruise at this speed.

They can go faster if you are late for flight, may be. rl: .
Anyway, fast acceleration helps in filtering traffic effectively.

Experience of being "driven around" in a BYD E6

Now that the "let buy an EV" bug has really bit me, I jumped at the opportunity to do an extended drive in an E6. This was important since in all test drive you tend to drive or at best , sit in the front passanger seat. However you family travels in the rear seat and now that we have a full-time driver, I sit in the rear seat more often than not. My drive was from Hyderabad airport to a "deep northern subiurb" - a distance of a good 78 Km- 80% highway and 20% city traffic. Here are my observations sitting in the passenger seat.

1. There is a lot of space. As "the boss", you really seat some distance away from the driver. Ideal for being driven around. Quite a change from Nexon.ev Kona et al.
2. There is a lot of tyre and road noise inside the cabin. IMO it completely negates the purpose of having a silent cabin devoid of the ICE engine NVH. This cabin was way louder than my Innova and the Ertiga. Not cool.
3. The driver swore by its reliability and low maintenance costs. He also confirmed that regularly gets 47-500 Km of real world range.
4. Lastly , the rear seat compound was overly soft. It was quite uncomfortable to sit in it by the end of our 50 min journey. I won't recommend it for people who want to buy this car for long trips.

Back to the drawing boards,

Great car IMO.

The good:
1. The suspension in super comfortable, it glides I tell you! 500KM real world range.
2. This car will give you 520KM if driven completely in the city with regen on. On the highways, you can expect 450KM+.
3. Driving experience is very comfortable and you can really stretch your legs out given the telescopic steering and low seating height (which has changed with aftermarket cushioning, read below).
4. The look is fantastic from the rear (almost Benz-like IMO).
5. The front projector halogens are really, really good! True all weather lights I would say.
6. TONs of boot space, and a real world seating of 5 people.

The bad:
1. Rear bench is, well, meh - not enough cushioning and sits too low from the floor.
We got our rear bench seat re-done. Literally went to semi-sofa makers for cars and got all the cushioning and rests done the way we like it. Now it's super luxurious in the rear.
2. The Chinese accented driver and passenger warnings are a little unpleasant in the beginning.
3. Unless the front AC is on a high enough speed setting, people in the rear can feel stuffy. So having someone in the front who can't take the hit of cold air directly, will quickly make you realise the lack of circulation.

Overall, BIG value for money at the price which you could get this for with Karnataka's EV rebate. With its range the possibilities are many, giving you the ability to save on any and all kinds of trips.

Here is a little fuel cost analysis on the car, I did.


Analysis of a 15-year period for both the petrol vehicle and the electric vehicle, maintaining the following parameters.

Petrol Vehicle:

Yearly running: 20,000 km (not everyone does this, but I do more)
Mileage: 17 kmpl
Current petrol price: Rs 102 per liter
Annual increase in petrol prices: 5%
We'll calculate the total fuel cost for the petrol vehicle over 15 years:

Year 1:
Fuel consumption = 20,000 km / 17 kmpl = 1176.47 liters
Fuel cost year 1 = 1176.47 liters * Rs 102 = Rs 1,20,000 (approximately)
Years 2 to 15 (factoring in 5% annual increase):
Year 2: Rs 1,20,000 * 1.05 = Rs 1,26,000
Year 3: Rs 1,26,000 * 1.05 = Rs 1,32,300
... and so on.


Electric Vehicle:

Yearly running: 20,000 km
Running cost: Rs 1.58 per km
Annual increase in running cost: 5%
We'll calculate the total running cost for the electric vehicle over 15 years:

Year 1:
Running cost = 20,000 km * Rs 1.58/km = Rs 31,600
Years 2 to 15 (factoring in 5% annual increase):
Year 2: Rs 31,600 * 1.05 = Rs 33,180
Year 3: Rs 33,180 * 1.05 = Rs 34,839
... and so on.

Upon calculation for a 15-year period, here are the results:

Petrol Vehicle:
Total fuel cost over 15 years: Approximately Rs 36,71,760
Electric Vehicle:
Total running cost over 15 years: Approximately Rs 6,65,641
Cost Difference:
The difference in cost between running the petrol vehicle and the electric vehicle over 15 years is approximately Rs 36,71,760 - Rs 6,65,641 = Rs 30,06,119.

So, over 15 years with these parameters, the electric vehicle would potentially save around Rs 30,06,119 in running costs compared to the petrol vehicle. That's nearly the price of the car!!

NOTE:
1. Annual increase in petrol price isn't 5%, but it is close enough over the long term.
2. Maintenance costs wasn't included in the scope of the analysis.

Nice comparison.

But won't we have to replace EV battery atleast twice in a period of 15 years? Cost of batteries will be a major expenditure right?

I believe there is a warranty for 8 years / 500 000 km (whichever is earlier) for battery.

Link: https://bydautoindia.com/all-new-e6

And, if the first battery change happens after the 8th year, I think it should go on for another 8-9 years with the new battery.

Cheers!

I have heard that there are 12 plus year models runnning in China on the same battery with negligible drop in efficiency. BYD definitely knows their stuff.

Good analysis. Mind you the 8 year/500k km warranty is the 'guaranteed' minimum life of the battery, actual longevity could turn out to be even greater.

I think one of the weakest points of EVs is the incomplete/evolving understanding on battery degradation, the chemistry of which seems to differ for different cell types (cell chemistry). There is no standard formula/rule & the lack of resources (softwares/tools etc) available to the consumer to assess the same are rare, if any. This creates confusion & compounded with the apathy & opaqueness by the manufacturers to address this issue, causes steep fall in resale value with the potential used car buyer assuming that the battery is complete toast.

Another thing is the 'surprise' (highly inflated) maintainance bills that some folks see on a routing service visit (eg: an Ather owner getting an 8k service bill recently). Such things erode the already low trust & reliability expectation people have towards EVs.
The complexity of EVs doesn't lend the customer to handle fixing any issues on their own either.

No not at all, it all depends on the amount of running. The example cited was for 20,000 kms per year that is 3,00,000 kms in 15 years. This is much lesser than the cycle life that BYD is quoting for their batteries. Their batteries definitely run 1000 cycles. E6 easily does 400 kms in one cycle.

Also a battery which will not be good for a car will have residual value for its second life use as a BESS so cost of replacement will not be exorbitant.

Nice calculation!

Couple of things that add to your EV case:

The average petrol or diesel car will not survive post 200k kms. And even if it does (let's say you buy an Innova Crysta or Hycross), these kind of miles will definitely get you some good maintenance bills. Should you buy let's say a Tiguan or Compass, you'll end up paying 3-4x in maintenance. EVs have lesser moving parts (suspension and tyres, AC unit etc are there) so they'd need lesser care and the battery guarantee helps.

Emission norms could total your fossil fuel car much before it gives you any trouble. EVs are somewhat safer there too!

The only con I see with EVs today are their prices. While EV prices may not see much correction in the coming years, I think with inflation, their effective cost would go down atleast as more people start buying them. Rare as their raw materials be, manufacturers would have thought of the supply and demand problem already.

While the numbers look big, I think the cost of petrol car is being understated while EV cost is overstated.

1. Mileage of 17 KMPL for a petrol car the size of BYD e6 is city traffic? Fat chance. Cars with similar power and size guzzle fuel with most returning 10 KMPL in cities. Taking a mix of city and highway driving I would say average of 12 - 13 KMPL is reasonable.

2. I think cost of electricity has been calculated by taking the bill amount and dividing by number of units consumed. That's not an accurate way of doing so because the fixed costs of the electricity bill would've anyway been incurred even if an EV was not purchased. The right way would be to consider fixed cost increase due to load increase if any and then add the cost of energy. In Bangalore, the cost of energy is around Rs 6 per kWh. With real world efficiency of 6 KMs per kWh consenvatively, translates to around Rs 1 per KM in running costs.

3. Electricity price inflation is far lower than petrol price inflation over the long term. With lot of renewables coming into the grid, we may actually see some deflation in electricity prices. It's already happening in Bangalore where energy costs were recently cut for the first time in 15 years.

4. Maintenance costs are a big advantage for EVs especially as they get older vs petrol vehicles.

Based on the numbers I crunched, an EV saves you Rs 1L for every 10k KMs that you drive. But ultimately money is the icing on the cake. Real pleasure is the fuss free ownership and time savings for my usecase which is usually long drives of around 400-500 KMs.

Very valid points, the case for EVs only becomes stronger. EVs will definitely see price parity with ICE vehicles soon IMO.



I simply took the cost per KM off of a magazine website publish numbers for a vehicle's cost per KM. I can't remember the source as this analysis was done a while back before the purchase of the car. All of your points also have validity to them, the savings with the E6 could be much, much more!

I thought I'd share the changes to the seating we had done. The seat colour was changed to a light shade of beige, which really compliments the black interior IMO. We had the colour match the colour of the ceiling insulation. We also requested for a complete overhaul of the seat cushioning, which the team has done very well. They have added the cushions on top of the stock seat, keeping the factory faux leather and original cushioning intact.

All work was done in Hyderabad on that famous road (can't remember the name) where a lot of car modification shops are present, one after the other. If anyone is interested, I'll track down the shop name for your reference.



As you can see the side bolstering as been more exaggerated and the thigh support extended further.



The thigh support has now increased in hight as well.



The back bench has now increased in height overall, and you now see that the bottom support cushion is now completely flat to better accommodate 3 people. You will also notice, we have increased the apparent recline angle of the rear bench, through enhanced lumbar support and overall cushion thickness staggered from top down.



A better angle of the lumbar support, which is truly the highlight of the modification, making sitting in the back a pleasurable experience.