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-   -   Mahindra Reva e2o : Official Review (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/official-new-car-reviews/134857-mahindra-reva-e2o-official-review-17.html)

Also its pointless comparing this amazing car to the Nano. The feel of sitting in a quiet vibrationless car like the e2o is unmatched in the Hatchback section, IMO.
And people compare this to the Nano. Its sad.

I have been using the e2o for over a year now.
My running costs are coming to less 0.5 ps per km.

I have done 9000 km ; My total 'electricity' cost has been around Ra 4000 ; Rs 0 maintenance (thank that there is no OIL based ICE engine to spend money on maintenance) ;

On top of that u save OIL for your country and u dont 'do' emissions on people's faces when u drive the car.


This is more than a car :) Its so much fun to drive too :)
Just go for it.

Adding battery cost of 1.6L for 6th year is not right. The 2590/- can continue beyond 5 years too. So, the TCO for 6th year by this math comes down to 6.8L - which is not very far from Nano TCO.

Also, can the petrol car owners guarantee no major expenses in the 6 years of automobile ownership?

For Reva with minimal moving parts inside, having owned one for 7 years, I can say no major expenses at all (except battery replacement) in past 7 years. Also Reva cars hold better resale value than petrol cars.

The Biggest PLUS:

(Apart from Zero Emission) is that there is no Engine Oil - Gearbox Oil / Service etc.

Other Points I likes: There are 100+ charging stations in Bangalore. In Delhi you get Subsidy on this car. Number of Charging stations in Gurgaon and NCR region.

At 5 rupees per unit - you will need only 40 to 50 rupees per Full Charge - that means - a running cost of 50 ps per KM.

If you can install a Solar Electric Panel at Home - You can run the CAR for FREE many of the days.


NEGATIVES:

Interior ergonomics and plastics are shoddy - They just have concentrated too much on features - too less on Fine Design - when you look at automotive design.

Being Tall - creates too much wind / air drag - reducing the overall mileage per charge. A Stream lined design would have helped.

Very High Intital Cost and TCO for a Narrow hatchback



Case Study - Financial Comparison using your nice Excel TCO calculator

Now Comes in the Jugaadu Hindustaani in me giving you great do-able Ideas.

According to the great Total Cost of Ownership excel sheet of Team BHP here is the comparison and suggestion.

Buy a good second hand car like a Baleno from Maruti for about 1 - 1.5 lakh. Fix a CNG Kit in it.


Now at End of ( Including Maintenance and Fuel / Electricity)

3 years using 80 km every day

e2o will cost you: 7.92 lakhs

Baleno CNG (including maintenance and CNG fitting + running fuel costs) : 5.63 Lakhs.

6 years using 80 km everyday:

e2o will cost you: 10.42 Lakhs (including Battery Change in 4th year of 1.5 Lakh)

Baleno CNG : 9.25 Lakhs.

Now if you add the Finance cost - Interest on EMI of a loan of 7 Lakhs for 6 years on the TCO of e2o v/s Loan of 2 Lakh for 6 years on Baleno the equation changes.

e2o including interest and finance charges will cost you about : 13.5 (Including Insurance)

Baleno will cost you ( including Insurance) about 11 Lakhs.

-------------------------------------

Apart from the benefits on Paper on road you get with BALENO:

~ Tens of thousands of Mechanics / Service stations.

~ Long Drive Capability

~ Tens of thousands of Petrol Bunks ( yes CNG cars can be switched to petrol anytime - if CNG is over - its a great backup too - no need of carrying Generator.

~ The last but not least of Baleno Idea is: SPACE - SAFETY CLASS of having a BIG car.

(psst - this big car has a TCO of 20% less than e2o while giving me above benefits - haha Mahindra I know you hate me for this!)

I got my car only a week back and was really looking forward to start my initial ownership experience thread after couple of months. It looked very promising until last night and I never expected that I would post this way.

Hardly a week that I started using this car and last night I went to visit my friend's house in Sarjapur. This place is 20 Kms from Sarjapur-Outer Ring Road junction in Bangalore. Before parking the car at my friends house, I first noticed that I am unable to engage Neutral or Reverse gear. I could push it back to Boost mode without any problem. I didnt pay much attention and parked the car with the gear mode still in F as it couldn't be moved to N. After an hour, got into the car to go back to my home and to my shock, I was not able to move the gear to F modeat all. It just wouldn't move. I can still push it back to B mode which is useless anyway, as the car is switched off. In normal scenarios, all I need to do is push the gear to N and then back to F to move the car.

I called the Reva customer care and they put me onto a technical engineer who confirmed that they need an engineer to check the car directly in person since its already very late at 10 PM. The engineer asked me to leave the car there itself and their engineer would come and check it.

I already followed up couple of times this morning as when the engineer would reach my friend's place to check the car and no one reached out to me yet. I am still waiting.

From what I understand this looks to be a gear box problem. Gear box problem in a one week old car which I never expected in my wildest dreams. I was prepared to face some minor niggles or glitches with the software when I bought this car, but definitely not a mechanical failure.

Imagine, getting stranded in the middle of no where with the family (2 small kids). Luckily I was at my friends place and could get a ride back home.

Any insights on why this can happen in a brand new car? Can this be repaired or should I go in for a gear box replacement? Ofcourse, assuming its all down to gear box problem, which I am pretty sure it is.

Thanks,
Greg

Turns out this is a problem with the gear shifter itself. The Reva engineer took me to the place where my car is parked last night in his car. He got another spare part of Pricol gear shifter. Initially he was able to shift the gear, but after multiple attempts, it got stuck again. He replaced the gear shifter with a new one and the problem is completely rectified. The old faulty part is taken back to the Reva factory for further investigation. The part is replaced under warranty and I could immediately feel the smoothness in shifting between different gears.

While I am happy that the problem is rectified, I am seriously concerned about the extent of quality checks happening at Reva. The engineer also told that the gear shift sound with the faulty one is definitely not how it is supposed to be and if it is evident, why its not detected during post QC checks.

There was also a problem with the screen display. Every time I start the car, there will be a distorted view of the last loaded image and then the Mahindra Reva logo appears loading. The engineer just reset the settings to factory and the problem is gone. I was told to monitor this for the next few days and if it reappears, they will replace it with a new part.

Problems apart, the car is such a joy to drive around in the city. I already drove around 450Km in a week's time. Will definitely start a new ownership thread with all my positive and not so positive experiences very soon.

Special mention about the Reva Engineer Dilip who rectified the problem in less than 20 minutes and was very patient answering all my questions. The Mahindra Reva customer care experience is very satisfactory. Their 24x7 Road Side Assistance Toll Free Number support is efficient and they got my problem registered with the engineers in a short time.

Unlikely, since the e2o doesn't have a shiftable gear-box :)

That makes more sense!

Sounds like a bad failure though. Thanks for sharing this info.

If there's other owners who've faced the same problem, then we'll probably hear about it soon. If not, then it might have just been a one-off faulty part.

Look forward to your review (was just looking out of the window this afternoon and a e2o went up the road - and i thought about how peaceful & enjoyable it would be to own one!)

cya
R

This car costs close to 9L on the road in Hyderabad! I thought of buying this car as my second car but had to back off when I heard the price! It also meant talking to my gated community maintenance folks to install a 15 amp socket at my parking spot.

I hope Telangana government extends subsidy to e2o and I hope apartment complexes - at least those which are getting built now - have the provision to charge the vehicles while they are parked.

Hoping to own an electric vehicle soon in Hyderabad.

As per the engineer, they have identified the problem with gear shift in the early stages itself. Its basically the design of the switch used to press before shifting the gears. Starting from the 200th car, they have introduced this gear shifter with the new switches and mine is the 639th car, so it should already have come with the new design. Unfortunately there is a problem with the design too, probably a one off scenario. If any of the owners are facing a similar problem, all they need to do is press the switch twice with no delay and then on the third press, hold it for a while and then release it. This would separate the copper connectors locking the gear shift and will enable the same.

9L onroad?? Are you serious?? The only benefit we get in Bangalore is 5.5% VAT and 4% Road Tax as against 14.5% for both VAT and RTO Registration charges. Didn't you check the GFHE scheme? With the battery leased to Mahindra, it works out a whole lot cheaper and easy on the battery maintenance.

Getting an 15 AMP socket is not a problem at all. I live in an apartment complex too. All we need to do is pull the wire from our Electric meter and then extend it to the parking lot. It won't cost much either.

There are additional TAX SOPs for builders who provide charging points in the parking area, but this is not known to many yet.

This problem reoccured after a week. :Frustrati

Video of the display problem that I shared with Mahindra Reva. http://youtu.be/IKMWAii3QIY

I called up customer care and a new complaint was registered. The entire infotainment unit is replaced with a new one under warranty.

in E2o the remote is connected to the horn for the audio alarm. it chirps every time i unlock / lock the door or opens the boot. is there a way to do a silent lock / unlock on e20.

This is something that I am looking for too. Its really disturbing the entire neighborhood [or calling in for attention] in the nights when we connect/disconnect for charging purpose !

The older [really old one's] remotes used to have the combination of lock/unlock button to turn on/off the sound. But, that doesnt seem to work on this.

Prem.

I called up the support number. They are also not aware of the of combination for silent lock. They have forwarded the request to technical support and I am waiting for a reply on this.

I spoke to the Reva engineer this morning about this and he confirmed that there is no option to mute the beep sound during lock/unlock/opening the boot. As per him, the BCM (Body Control Module) is designed that way and the only way to remove that sound is remove the horn complete. :)

In a way, these are the only audible sound that comes from this car. For good or bad, we dont want this too :)

Prem.

I also got the same comment from REVA tech support today, I have opened a feature request with them. The issue is when we go to places like Court premises and hospitals. especially in court premises it will attract heavy penalty if you accidentally lock our car.