[DevilinDiguise]

Another day, another issue. A week back my Home charger (11Kw Mahindra) stopped working and started showing Red Fault error after 30 seconds of powering on the charger. The charger was barely a month old!

I reached customer support and for 3 days zero revert. Ended up raising concern on Social media and within a few hours they reached out and assigned an engineer visit the next day. Engineer checked and said that he has seen 2-3 such other cases and they will replace the charger which should take 7-8 days.

Fast forward to today (3 days after engineer visit) they claim that due to water damage it is out of warranty and cannot be replaced. Seems that while the charger is IPXX rated, the gun is not. This a week after extremely heavy rains in Mumbai so the charger definitely couldn't handle it. Apparently Mahindra is making these chargers and have clearly no quality control and experience in electric chargers.

Would suggest to skip their chargers, as despite being extremely expensive for what it gives, there is no quality or reliability. Even if they do fix after my escalations, there is absolutely no guarantee that it will survive anywhere close to the period that I plan to keep the car.

[SLK]

Originally Posted by DevilinDiguise

Another day, another issue.

True that

Originally Posted by DevilinDiguise

Fast forward to today (3 days after engineer visit) they claim that due to water damage it is out of warranty and cannot be replaced. Seems that while the charger is IPXX rated, the gun is not.

That is very sad and weird, there is practically nothing in the gun to permanently get damaged!

I do however believe that it is a bad idea to install the charger in open, nothing is weather-proof. Sun and rain together kill anything. If there is no covered parking, a portable charger should be used. This is practically Mahindra's fault by forcing only a certain type of chargers and then agreeing to install them in open.

[dthyaga]

Originally Posted by DevilinDiguise

Another day, another issue. A week back my Home charger (11Kw Mahindra) stopped working and started showing Red Fault error after 30 seconds of powering on the charger. The charger was barely a month old!

I reached customer support and for 3 days zero revert. Ended up raising concern on Social media and within a few hours they reached out and assigned an engineer visit the next day. Engineer checked and said that he has seen 2-3 such other cases and they will replace the charger which should take 7-8 days.

Fast forward to today (3 days after engineer visit) they claim that due to water damage it is out of warranty and cannot be replaced. Seems that while the charger is IPXX rated, the gun is not. This a week after extremely heavy rains in Mumbai so the charger definitely couldn't handle it. Apparently Mahindra is making these chargers and have clearly no quality control and experience in electric chargers.

Would suggest to skip their chargers, as despite being extremely expensive for what it gives, there is no quality or reliability. Even if they do fix after my escalations, there is absolutely no guarantee that it will survive anywhere close to the period that I plan to keep the car.

This is the reason I have opted out of purchasing the charger from mahindra, infact at the time of booking itself I fought with them saying I do not need the charger and also escalated to the Mahindra customer care. Thankfully better sense prevailed and they made it optional. I got my booking updated to remove the charger, strangly though my booking was done on Feb 14th the SA called me last week telling somehow it got cancelled and he did had to do a rebooking again. At that time i got the charger removed.

[evhead]

No Harrier comments in this thread yet!! Let me start.
Time for M&M to quickly launch higher battery sizes in lower variants. You just have got a very serious competitor!!

Things that I really liked, which we miss in XEV.

1. Dashcam + electronic rear view mirror part of the car
2. V2V / V2L
3. I guess rear seat is better. Lets wait on it.
4. AWD / QWD

That apart, both XEV and Harrier are solid cars. Hope M&M quickly stabilises the product. Good time for customers

[lalithesh]

Originally Posted by evhead

No Harrier comments in this thread yet!! Let me start.
Time for M&M to quickly launch higher battery sizes in lower variants. You just have got a very serious competitor!!

More than the battery sizes, it looks like it is already time for price correction by M&M. A more 'car-like' car coming at a better price, ticking all the important boxes, will definitely pull some prospective customers away from Xev9e.

[magikrider]

Mahindra has the habit of pulling a rabbit out of its hat and shock everyone but then they’re not able to maintain the attention of its customers because of its poor service! But this time if they don’t pull up their socks, Tata might actually will the race!

[futcar]

Originally Posted by evhead

That apart, both XEV and Harrier are solid cars. Hope M&M quickly stabilises the product. Good time for customers

Agree, serious competition with compelling features, waiting for full price and models, if M&M doesnt deliver pack2 equivalent with revised battery/features/price & delivery dates, i'm thinking to switch to Harrier EV.

[teslageek]

Originally Posted by DevilinDiguise

Fast forward to today (3 days after engineer visit) they claim that due to water damage it is out of warranty and cannot be replaced. Seems that while the charger is IPXX rated, the gun is not.

This is just unacceptable in my opinion. Their claim that the gun is not IP rated is just bollock, because it does not need to be. It is like saying the charger is IP rated but the USB cable is not - it does not need to be.

Did you push them for warranty? Is it not that the onus is on them to prove that gun is the issue and not the charger box itself? I would not accept this if I was you. It is not a cheap charger either.

[DevilinDiguise]

Originally Posted by teslageek

Did you push them for warranty? Is it not that the onus is on them to prove that gun is the issue and not the charger box itself? I would not accept this if I was you. It is not a cheap charger either.

After a lot of back and forth, they agreed to arrange for a replacement. The only request from their end was to get a canopy or a waterproof junction box setup for the charger to avoid repeat of the issue. So basically I need to spend one way or another to get the charger in order to overcome their inadequacies. Based on this experience I'm not really sure about the longetivity of the device and will it survive even close to, let alone more than the period that i keep the car. Guess we are beta testers not only for the car but also these new chargers.

P.S. My society has more than 5 other EV chargers, all out in the open for several years. Two of them even from Mahindra, but the XUV400 variant (which seems to be from Exicom). Zero issues or complaints from them. And here we have in less than a month conking off!

[ashpalio]

On a practical and serious view, encase the MM's charger in one of those Sintex large boxes used by Power distributors. The boxes seem to be designed to handle electricity (loads of it), last for years and looks like they seal the case good. I think it goes by the name Sintex junction box.

[DevilinDiguise]

Originally Posted by ashpalio

On a practical and serious view, encase the MM's charger in one of those Sintex large boxes used by Power distributors. The boxes seem to be designed to handle electricity (loads of it), last for years and looks like they seal the case good. I think it goes by the name Sintex junction box.

I checked Sintex junction boxes listings. They don't have the size which would be required for this. The Mahindra infra guys have been very helpful (after the replacement was confirmed we all cooled down ) and are assisting me co-ordinate for contacts for the junction boxes. Dimensions and sample of what it would look like is in the images below. Cost for this would be 14k. If anyone has better (and cheaper) suggestions, I'm all ears.

[purohitanuj]

Finished a 2036KM road trip in my XEV

Gurgaon - Jaipur - Bhopal - Ujjain - Gurgaon

I will divide this trip into 3 Legs

• Leg 1 - Gurgaon to Bhopal via Jaipur-Kota
• Leg 2 - Bhopal to Ujjain
• Leg 3 - Ujjain to Gurgaon

Highlights

• Full 2036KM trip was completed in 368% SOC which translates into 553KM / 100%
• Maximum charging time for the whole duration was 80minutes thanks to Rajasthan DCFC issue which causes DCFC to limit at 22KW for a shared gun!
• Achieved 293KM in 52% on 100% expressway drive locked at 80KM/Hr ( It was a test run of 294 KM with ACC linked regen with ACC locked at 80KM/hr for the whole time!). This extrapolates to 563KM/100%. Anyone who wants to test the range of Mahindra BEVs can lock the ACC to 80KM/hr and let it drive for flat 500ish KMs.
• Worse efficiency received = 102KM in 28% SOC with some spirited driving, beating cars at least thrice the price of XEV
• The large battery pack helps out to mask the shortcoming of the EV Infra. I had witnessed 4 powercuts, which still allowed me to carry on while other EV owners were stuck at CPO location and would have waited till the electricity supply restored.
• I start my journey at whatever % my car has and do not fret/panic about charging to 100% every time.
• I am not worried that I need to charge to 100% overnight for my journey next day.
• I drove at 90-100km/hr on national highways and did not make any efforts to extract range as the traffic yields enough regen. The Drive Mode was either PowerSaving or Default with Auto-Regen
• I use Power Saving mode not to save power, but it eases out acceleration which is preferred by family.
• For expressway, I selected 85KM/Hr and used the Adaptive Cruise Control along with Smart Pilot to drive the whole length of expressway. The car drove well over 300KMs on its own, even using automated overtakes etc.

I have tried to make a map view of each leg to give insight of the drive leg.

The image shows the marking which will be helpful to deduce further information.

Leg 1 - Delhi to Bhopal via Jaipur

I left with 89% SOC to Jaipur as I had a short meeting. Charged at Jio to 90% and left for Bhopal via Kota - Jhalawar - Bhopal route. As this route had an expressway, I had set the ACC to 85KM/hr throughout the expressway and let the car drive under my supervision. The ADAS is next level. Even the new Harrier EV is one generation behind it.

The ADAS + VisionX's augmented reality is something out of this world. Its like science fiction. The graphics are overlayed on the windscreen glass with Realtime tracking of traffic and system draws a white line just below the vehicle in front on VisionX to match the physical vehicle. The line becomes small/big depending on the distance of the vehicle due to perspective view. Suppose of a truck that is 50mts away, the track of rear wheels would be 10mm in your view, hence you will see a 10mm line hovering below the truck in real-time.
If you or the truck moves in any direction, the line will float to track the real-time position of the truck!
If the truck comes closer, the truck will become big in your view, and also so does the line. The Augmented Reality stuff is super fluid! Shame, 99% of us won't have the past experience of AR to even judge this thing. A lot of processing is needed to collect the image from the camera, line up an underline to it, and then projecting it at the right place on the HUD!

Coming back to Leg 1, I had planned to top up at Kota - Xobolt Radhika Resort as it was close to the expressway. This point has only 1 gun of 30KW. I found another XEV charging at this location which was travelling from Delhi to Ujjain. I waited for 20 minutes and then I plugged in. The car topped up 19% and the power was cut. I still had more than enough range to reach BPCL SS PORWAL @ Jhalawar. Reached Jhalawar with 29% SOC and was pleasantly surprised to see a full 60KW capable Gun. Met the owner - Prashant Porwal and what gem of a guy he is! The charging took 53 minutes, and I had now 85% ( 29%+ 56%) SOC. Left for Bhopal and reached with 31% SOC at 10PM.
Next day, I charged to some % at Statiq located at Bhopal lake and used to the car around, along a visit to Bhojeshwar Mahadev Temple.

Key takeaways

Total distance travelled = 872KM
Total SOC Used = 160%
Total DCFC charging done on route = 102%
Total DCFC charging time = 108 minutes
Total paid in DCFC charging = INR 1607

Leg 1 Map - Click on the image to see details in high resolution


Resuming journey after charging near Jaipur


BPCL GUN at Porwal Service Station - BPCL


Reached Bhopal


Bhojeshwar Mahadev Temple

Leg 2 - Bhopal to Ujjain

Nothing much to report as it was a short drive. Left from Bhopal with 60% SOC. Had a quick food stop at Ode the Dhaba which has 4 ChargeZone guns, 4 upcoming Jio BP guns and 2 Adani Guns. Have never seen Adani charger online ever till now. Added up 23% in 20 mins with speed peaking at 60KW throughout. Witnessed powercut again but the XEV was sorted and ready to resume. 4 EVs were scrambling by now due to power loss as they would have to wait it out. This triggered a note to me to charge with 200Kms of range remaining to mitigate issues on return leg. Will come to this point soon.
Reached Ujjain with 38% SOC for lunch at Meghdoot Resort, which had JioBP charger installed. Added up 36% + 15% = 51% to have total of 89% as I had to do return journey to Gurgaon next day. Did not charge to 100% as I knew a Volttic charger is working near Garoth on expressway.
You may ask why I had charged to 36% and 15% in two different instances? Power Loss!


Total distance travelled = 200KM
Total SOC Used = 45%
Total DCFC charging done on route = 74% (considering the next day drive)
Total DCFC charging time = 50 minutes
Total paid in DCFC charging = INR 1133

Leg 2 Map - Click on the image to see details in high resolution


The SOC a night before journey to Ujjain. Post this pic, I took the car for a drive for dinner and parked back with 60% SOC.


ChargeZone Point




Adani charger at same location along with two yet-to-be-installed JioBP chargers as well.

Leg 3 - Ujjain to Gurgaon

Left at 9:30 AM with 89% SOC and as planned, took a quick 28-minute break at Volttic near Garoth on expressway. Reached with 62% and left with 80% SOC ( + 18% ). A ZSEV was sharing the gun, hence I got only slow 30KW speeds. I took the Kota - Deoli - Tonk route as the expressway does not have much option for food. Stopped at Dhanwa Resort at Kota, with very good food. There was a JioBP charger just next to it called as Jio-bp Mobility Station Kota TS. I had enough SOC and did not want to top it as I still would need a charger somewhere down the line to reach home with 1 charge only. But even if I wanted to charge, I could not have due to power loss.
I targeted to charge at Hotel Uttarayan, Sohela, Rajasthan or Mannat Restaurant at Kothun or at Dausa (many options present). Left from Kota with this plan. Once I reached Hotel Uttarayan, I was again greeted with powerloss; hence I moved forward with my plan to stop at Mannat Restaurant at Kothun.

I reached Mannat restaurant with 20% SOC and was pleased to see 2 Gun from Tata, 2 from Jio, and 2 from ChargeZone. Adani with 2 guns was also installed but it was not working. I plugged in at ChargeZone as Tata one had one Nexon charging. Due to some rule in Rajasthan, an EV charger would supply maximum of 42KW. Hence, I was getting 42 KW and then an e-Creta pulled in and plugged into charge gun, sharing the power which caused both of us to trickle down to a measly 22KW! I politely asked the guy to plug into the Jio point as it was free and that would have meant full 42KW speed for both of us. He told me that he has balance in ChargeZone app, which he wants to spend, and he does not wish to load new money into another CPO app. By this time, I was making up my mind to move to Jio charger and an XUV400 came and plugged into the Jio charger. Now I had no option but to wait at snail-pace 22KW charging speed. I calculated that the as per the remaining distance of 300Kms, I would need 60% SOC (300/5) and I would want another 15% as I wanted to reach with 20% SOC. Hence, I made up my mind to leave with 75% charging. The 22KW gun took 80 mins to top 55% giving me total of 75% of SOC. I left as soon as the car hit 75% SOC and drove all the way to Gurgaon on DME with ACC engaged at 80KM/hr. I reached home at 12:20AM with 23% SOC. This small section of 293KM was covered with 52% SOC, which is very impressive, considering 100% expressway run which does not allow any sort of regen to happen!

Total distance travelled = 788KM
Total SOC Used = 139%
100-0% Range = 566Kms
Total DCFC charging done on route = 83%
Total DCFC charging time = 108 minutes
Total paid in DCFC charging = INR 1285

Leg 3 Map - Click on the image to see details in high resolution


Start of journey


Volttic EV Charger


Starting to charge at 30KW


Time to move forward


Reached Mannat Restaurant at Kothun with 20% SOC


From Mannat Restaurant to home


Total drive for today


All in all, I am very satisfied with XEV9E and the range is very predictable and one can easily drive from more than 1000Kms in a day!

Gone are the days when EVs were for city drives only! I have covered more than 8000Kms and most of it is done on highways!