[Nissan1180]

I'm curious about the timeline. In the Economic Times article, I read that the first batch of cars would be delivered in November- which is next month. How is that possible? Is it so easy to replace the engine with the electric paraphernalia? If they manage to do it, the market would be revolutionized. A decent looking car like the Tigor with an electric powertrain and decent range would make this category mainstream. Right now, the E2O and the Logan (a.k.a. Verito) are the only two options, and both have their fair share of niggles.

[VeluM]

Originally Posted by sharktale

That's a really optimistic turnaround time. I am guessing that existing cars in the Tata workshop would be tossed away, to make sufficient space and labour available for solving issues (which I think shall be a lot) of the EVs.

Electric vehicles are extremely simple machines with little to go wrong in them unless one adds complex electronics as in Teslas or other high-end EVs.

While Tata can leverage their existing A.S.S. network, they would require specialised, separate engineers and equipment to service these vehicles. I do not think this would affect the existing operations of the regular A.S.Ss.

For all intents and purposes, there is a battery, electric motor, and an electronic governor that controls the power supplied to the motor from the battery based on driver input. Whatever is defective can easily be replaced and root-cause investigation does not require that the vehicle remain at the workshop.

Regenerative braking and fast charging would add complexity, but these are again electronics that can be replaced and tested/repaired off the vehicle. Logging of errors will assist in analysis and resolution.

In short, these SLAs will be easy to achieve in the short term with replacement, and in the long term the data gathered from these government vehicles and subsequent improvements will help deliver fairly niggle-free EVs to non-government consumers once they commence commercial operations.

[400notout]

According to this news the car seems to be the electric Tigor.

Tata Motors will manufacture the compact sedan Tigor with electric powertrain at its Sanand plant in Gujarat to meet the Rs. 1,120-crore order from Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL). The company has received an order to supply 10,000 electric cars to the state-run firm.

[Turbanator]

Toyota should have taken a lead, in my opinion, perhaps Government should have cajoled their management directly or using relations with Japanese Government. It would have been win-win for everyone. They need to reduce Tax component on Electric vehicles drastically perhaps with a rider of investing "n" time of Imports company does before setting up local manufacturing. Toyota could have got a large lot of Prius to begin with around 15 Lac or so if there were low/ nil duties. I can imagine a 3-6 month waiting time for Electric vehicles if cars like Prius and similar are sold with Zero duties.

But we work with so myopic vision completely forgetting the main agenda .

This must be an exceptional Government tender where such a large order is awarded to a company which even does not have a working model or I believe a firm spec sheet( at least not in public domain), I can only imagine what will happen to these 500 cars that Tata will somehow produce with some jugaads

[prakash_ajp]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Toyota should have taken a lead, in my opinion, perhaps Government should have cajoled their management directly or using relations with Japanese Government. It would have been win-win for everyone. They need to reduce Tax component on Electric vehicles drastically perhaps with a rider of investing "n" time of Imports company does before setting up local manufacturing. Toyota could have got a large lot of Prius to begin with around 15 Lac or so if there were low/ nil duties. I can imagine a 3-6 month waiting time for Electric vehicles if cars like Prius and similar are sold with Zero duties.

But we work with so myopic vision completely forgetting the main agenda .

This must be an exceptional Government tender where such a large order is awarded to a company which even does not have a working model or I believe a firm spec sheet( at least not in public domain), I can only imagine what will happen to these 500 cars that Tata will somehow produce with some jugaads

I don't know what you have against Tata. But should haves and could haves don't create reality. The reality is that Tata outbid other bidders, which according to the news, Toyota wasn't part of. Nobody is going to give it to them on a platter. If they wanted it, they better deserve it, which in my opinion they don't.

[Turbanator]

The reality is that Tata outbid other bidders, which according to the news, Toyota wasn't part of. Nobody is going to give it to them on a platter.

It's not so simple, just by making an offer for something you neither have an expertise nor infrastructure, this is not going to help anyone. Why will Toyota bid? Look at the taxes to Hybrids for which they had invested and started assembly locally?

The government needs to think from a larger view, go back into the history if we had 100 % and above duties in 80's would Suzuki had set up a plant? And today how much does Suzuki imports, hardly anything.

What I am trying to suggest is that Toyota is amongst the global leader in this technology, and if they were to set up a full Electric plant it would have helped all others including our home companies like TATA to take advantage of that ecosystem. Denso is one of the leading suppliers to TATA and Mahindra but who bought them or other Japanese companies to India? But again most of us are happy with E-Rickshaws so no wonder TATA can surely produce something similar or better than those easily.

[gopi_rm]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Toyota should have taken a lead, in my opinion, perhaps Government should have cajoled their management directly or using relations with Japanese Government. It would have been win-win for everyone. They need to reduce Tax component on Electric vehicles drastically perhaps with a rider of investing "n" time of Imports company does before setting up local manufacturing. Toyota could have got a large lot of Prius to begin with around 15 Lac or so if there were low/ nil duties. I can imagine a 3-6 month waiting time for Electric vehicles if cars like Prius and similar are sold with Zero duties.

But we work with so myopic vision completely forgetting the main agenda .

This must be an exceptional Government tender where such a large order is awarded to a company which even does not have a working model or I believe a firm spec sheet( at least not in public domain), I can only imagine what will happen to these 500 cars that Tata will somehow produce with some jugaads

Toyota did not participate in the bidding and prius is not a pure electric vehicle.
I think Tata has already some R&D experience abroad (UK) in electric car development and has showcased few models since 2008 till recently so it won't be a juggard.
But it must be seen how Tata is going to develop the prototype into to a mass production model with full lifecycle tests and production line setup with in a short duration.

[cingsman]

Why not? If Tesla can bring a EV directly from scratch, why can't a Tata Motors which has been making mobility solutions for donkey's years make one? Of course, they will have the expertise.

In fact, most OEMs given enough business positives will dive into such things. Some see the positives, some don't.

Long story short - Tata, Mahindra and Nissan did. Toyota didn't!

[norhog]

Being on topic of EV, there are some RTOs in India where a EV cannot be registered.
I am sure West Bengal is one of them.
So in absence of regulatory framework how will it be registered in such states?

[GTO]

Big congrats to Tata Motors! Shows that the Tata of 2017 is a lot different than the lethargic company we saw just a couple of years back.

Originally Posted by JitendraK78

Tiago EV and Zest EV are already under testing and homologation at present. CMVR approvals expected by Diwali AFAIK.

This post has more details on the Tiago EV (can be easily matched to the Tigor) - link:

Originally Posted by Ragavsr

10000 units of electric cars is a huge number. The E2o would have sold 2000-3000 units while the original Reva managed a total of 4600 units in its lifetime.

HUGE indeed. I'm going to have to eat my own words. On the other thread, I'd posted:

Originally Posted by GTO

Don't know how they are going to fulfill this tender as no one other than Mahindra has an electric sedan in India. The Verito is so old & outdated that government officers may not want to travel in it. Not to forget, it's grossly overpriced as well. The order size isn't big enough for any manufacturer to invest in assembly facilities here.

The only way this tender will see bids (other than the e-Verito) will be if some manufacturer imports EVs for the government, and writes the losses off as a marketing / PR expense. But that sets a bad precedent - the government using imported cars at the same time it is pushing the 'Make in India' movement?

Oh well, the entire exercise should give the government a reality check on the state of EVs in India.

Originally Posted by smartcat

Anand Mahindra congratulates Tata Motors for winning the EV bid.

The ever classy Anand Mahindra .

Originally Posted by Turbanator

Toyota should have taken a lead, in my opinion

Toyota taking the lead in such a matter is a joke . They took 5 years to bring the Fortuner here - despite customers begging for it, and are selling models in 2017 that felt outdated in 2010 (Liva, Etios). Toyota India is so slow that they'll probably bring EVs to India when the world has moved onto solar-powered self-driving cars.

[jeepster]

Bolt EV Drive video from 2016.

Just watch it ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DxP2LLGM3M

Bolt EV – road test of this brand new electric prototype [First look]

Life’s a funny old thing. There you are, minding your own business, when all of a sudden fate plays you a hand. A wry hand. A hand that makes you wonder just who is laughing at us minions down on the ground. Take, for instance, our recent short road test run of a shiny new electric car somewhere in the middle of the UK’s lovely countryside. It was fun. It was illuminating. What it definitely wasn’t, was a car I was expecting to see on that day.

Source: http://www.redferret.net/?p=53439

[ts1506]

Originally Posted by norhog

Being on topic of EV, there are some RTOs in India where a EV cannot be registered.
I am sure West Bengal is one of them.
So in absence of regulatory framework how will it be registered in such states?

You can register EVs in many (if not all) RTOs in WB. I've seen numerous Reva, E2Os from Beltala, Salt Lake, Kasba, Barasat, Barrackpore RTO numbers.

There had been some issues in between, regarding the need for cubic capacity and BHP for registration needs, but those have been sorted out.

On topic, what we consumer's have been missing is the practicality part, in the EVs sold here like the E2O. Dropping a Tiago or Tigor into the mass market, with a bit better range (200km would be enough) at a price range of 8-10 lac, could see a lot of adoption. Currently, the E2O is too small and eVerito too expensive, apart from the other niggles.

[autorahul]

Originally Posted by jeepster

Bolt EV Drive video from 2016.

Just watch it ...

Source: http://www.redferret.net/?p=53439

The person mentions very briefly about Land Rover EV program.

Just last month Jaguar Land Rover made public their intentions of selling only electric and hybrid cars from 2020 in UK. This means there has been some significant development been made in this regard. These are exciting times for the market.

https://www.theguardian.com/business...brid-cars-2020

I hope such development progress is made that, by the year 2020, we (the middle class) are seriously considering EV as an option too.

[hybridpetrol]

When Tata releases an electric car to the market, we can be sure it is well tested, as it is will be first tested with government officials! What a way to kick start electric vehicles in the country!

[RavenAvi]

Tata Motors will produce the Tigor EV from it's Sanand plant to meet the order placed by state-run Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL), according to a report by ET Auto.

"The electric version of the Tigor would be produced at Sanand plant," sources close to the development said.

At present, the company rolls out the conventional version of the compact sedan, hatchback Tiago and entry-level car Nano from the Sanand plant, which has an annual capacity of 2.5 lakh units.

Tata Motors will supply the electric vehicles (EVs) in two phases with 500 e-cars in the first phase in November 2017 and the remaining 9,500 electric vehicles (EVs) in the second phase, EESL had stated. All these 10,000 electric cars will be procured within nine months period from the date of issue of letter of intent.