How I became an EV convert after buying the Tata Tiago EV

Driving around started becoming an expensive hobby. That’s when the EV came as a breath of fresh air.

BHPian Mr. Perera recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Let me start with something that I never thought I would say in my life,“The current bunch of EVs are super fun cars to drive and the future isnt as bad as I thought!”

In the past one year my time spent behind the wheel has increased drastically. The main reason being me shifting to a new house in the outskirts of the city, combined with my work which includes lots of site visits in and around town. My monthly car usage became around 1500 to 2000 kms and fuel expenses started skyrocketing which in some months used to cross the 25k mark. With the ever increasing fuel costs I wanted something that could help me bring down my fuel expense and had fair bit of creature comforts so that I did not come back home tired after all this running around. Since my house had an 8KW rooftop solar plant which has been producing excess electricity I thought to get an EV so that I could use the excess power generated for my daily commutes. Also I did not want to spend more than 10 lakhs since I was not much convinced on spending a lot on this new technology. Thats when Tata announced the Tiago EV in September last year at a pretty good price. The enthusiast in me still was skeptical whether I am doing justice to myself. How could I live with a boring ‘battery powered’ car. Just to save some money am I sacrificing my love for ‘real’ automobiles ?

The EV will be joining our garage which includes a 2021 Thar (the current daily driver + used for estate runs) , a 2020 Skoda Karoq (the good boy, used mostly for long drives and when everyone in the family are travelling together), a 2002 BMW E46 320i (6 cylinder NA petrol RWD gem, generally taken out for weekend spins), a 1980 Mercedes W123 (for the love of a well engineered German classic, the Sunday morning coffee partner), a 2010 Toyota Innova (the beater, used for airport runs and transporting large items mostly my office consignments) and a 2011 Honda City (which has covered around 1.5 lakh kms and the car that the Tiago will be replacing eventually since the City has being showing signs of age). Every car has a dedicated purpose and all of them have been doing a great job in bringing a smile on my face every time I spend time with them. The Tiago EV had just one duty, to do the daily runarounds comfortably without breaking the bank. I didn’t have much expectations from it.

The Booking Process:

Right when the Tiago EV was announced I had registered my interest on the website. After few days I got a call from  my local Tata dealer, who asked me to do an advance payment of Rs 5,000 as booking amount. The mid variant XT was the model I initially planned to book. But like most car buyers the feature list made me rethink that if i spend another 1.3 lakhs I could get essential features like fog lights, rear wiper, driver seat height adjust, reversing camera and other feel good features like leather steering, leatherette seats, push button start, electric tail gate, cruise control and auto headlamp/wipers. So ended up booking the XZ+ Tech Lux Long Range variant in Daytona Grey colour. The Tiago EV came with 2 charging options, a 3.3 KW AC Slow charger and a 7.2KW AC Fast charger. For the Fast charger I had to spend another 55 thousand rupees extra. But I opted for the slow charger since my charging routine would be mostly overnight charging.

The booking was done on the first week of October and the delivery time they said was January 2023. By mid November I got a call from my sales associate asking me to pay another Rs 16,000 for the booking since Tata announced that the booking amount is Rs 21,000 for Tiago EV. I transfered the balance amount and waited. By January the reviews started coming online and the car was launched. I got a call from my dealer inviting me for the launch function of the Tiago EV at the showroom. I went for the function the next day and boy I was suprised to see the crowd there ! There were around 200 people in that small showroom and all of them were people who had booked the car. I met my sales associate who showed me the display car which was in a stunning shade of Tropical Mist. The colour actually looked pretty good on the Tiago. The interiors looked well put together. When I checked regarding the test drives they had no clue and said since the car is in very high demand they are prioritising the deliveries and haven’t got any update regarding test drives.

The ‘Horrible’ buying experience:

I waited for around 2 weeks after the launch and the initial timeline my sales associate gave had already passed. Whenever I ask him regarding the status of my car or the test drive car he says “Sir, the car is having very high demand, that’s why the delay”. Already few cars had been delivered and since mine was one of the first bookings made I got quite restless. I asked them if they can atleast check if the car has been sent from factory for which they gave a not so satisfying response that they can’t know about the status of the car until its offloaded from the container after reaching their yard. And again I waited. Finally I got the contact of the sales manager through a friend, he told me that there has been unexpectedly high demand but only few cars have reached them and the initial few cars were reserved for TCS employees and since my booking was one of the first they said they will prioritise my delivery.

I had applied for a 10 lakh loan for this purchase through the showroom. The loan amount was approved the same day and I had instructed the bank to do the dispersal only after I gave the heads up. Exactly on 31st of January I get a call from my sales associate asking me to pay the remaining amount of around 12 lakhs. I asked him whether my car had come, for which he said no. I told him Il do the balance payment only after the car has reached. He then pulled up the trick saying that only after I do the payment they can prioritise my car, since there are so many people waiting only those people who have done the full payment will get the priority. I told him to stop all this nonsense and asked him to call for payment only after the car reaches. Still he tried his best saying that there are few cars coming the next week and my car is there in that, I reminded him that he only told me they can’t get the details of the car until it has offloaded from the container. He finally understood that I won’t do the payment and I hung up the call. At around 7 pm that day (the 31st of Jan) I get a call from the Sales Manager who again asks me to send atleast 10 lakhs to them. I told them I can’t do that since the car hasn’t reached yet. He promised me that the car will be delivered the next week itself. Fed up, I tried avoiding saying that it’s already 7 pm and the bank might have closed for which he said the bank people are with him only and if I just say a “yes” they will disperse the amount ! I was shocked to see how desperate they were to get the money. And he even ended up saying that it’s month end and they have targets so only if I give this amount they can meet it. Having heard of horror stories of Trivandrum motors before, I told him that I will do the dispersal only after the car has reached.

Few weeks passed, still no signs of my car or the test drive vehicle. I was thinking how these guys tried misleading me saying in few days my car is coming. On 17th of Feb I get a call from the sales guy saying that my car has reached. He said it’s being offloaded from the container. Finally a sign of relief ! I called up the bank and asked to disperse the 10 lakhs. After sometime the sales associate calls saying they have received the amount. I told him that I would like to come see the car. He said he will try arranging it. After sometime he calls me back saying that there has been some confusion and the container hasn’t reached yet and will reach only after 2 days ! At this point I lost my cool and I felt cheated very badly and they lied to me to get the money from me. I called up the sales manager, blasted him royally. I could feel that it was a trick pulled up by them and they were trying to put the blame on their ‘boss’ who had given some wrong information regarding a container that never arrived at the first place. I managed to get contact of the South India Sales Head of Tata and I had explained this situation to him. He was very unhappy with what had happened to me and he said he has been getting constant complaints regarding the dealership and he said he will look into the situation and he will try his best that I get the car soon.

After 2 days my sales associate sends me a photo of a Tropical Mist Tiago EV XZ+ Tech Lux that just reached their yard and told me that this car was allotted for another customer but they can give it to me. I was already fed up waiting and asked them to proceed with the car. The same day one person from Tata Power comes home and fixed the provision for the AC wall car charger. Meanwhile I went to the yard.

The first photo taken of the car taken at the yard.

Coincidentally the same week the registration number of my choice was available and I told them that I will be booking fancy number so asked them to pay the tax and give me the acknowledgment number so that I can go ahead with the fancy number booking. This information was given to him in the morning. It was a Saturday and the fancy number booking closes on Saturday evening. By evening when I checked with them for the acknowledgment number they said he haven’t done the tax payment yet ! At 6 pm they call me saying there is some technical error and they are unable to pay the tax now. I got really frustrated and asked them to leave it. They had all day and did nothing. Customer satisfaction is not at all there in their books and they were so careless and unbothered.The next Monday morning the number I wanted got auto allotted to someone else. I told the showroom that I don’t want any fancy number just give me my car. The next day they said the car registration is done and the HSRP is fixed and car is ready for delivery. But since I was really held up with work I asked them to deliver the car at my house which was near the showroom.

By around 6 pm I reached home and still the car hasn’t come. When I called them they said he is just starting and will reach in sometime. And finally he arrives home with the brand new Tiago EV.

The car after reaching home:

I took a walk around the car and found out that the car isn’t washed properly and found bird poop marks on the roof and a fairly large scratch on the boot. I was quite disappointed and looked at the sales guy who seemed to be searching frantically for something inside the car. Meanwhile there was another Tata guy who came with him who said that there is a water leak under the front passenger footwell which seems to from the AC and he asked me to take the car to showroom the next day to fix it. The already frustrated me became a steam engine and I told them to take the car back and fix all these and bring the car tomorrow. And on the other side the Sales associate who is still searching for something inside the car comes and tells me “Sir the key is missing sir !”. Since the car is having keyless ignition they came up with the conclusion that the key was in the showroom and they started the car kept the key there unknowingly and drove the car. Between all this I see a black item under my front windshield and look at it and found out that these people have kept the key between my windshield and the front hood and drove it all the way here ! What careless people these are. I gave them the key (what an irony , for my car delivery where I was supposed to get the key from them and I find the key and give it to them) and gave them a good mouthful and asked them to take the car back and fix all the issues and bring it. They tell me within an hour they will fix all this and bring the car. Finally after the car was washed properly, the scratch on the boot was polished and the AC leak was fixed, on 21 Feb 8 pm the car comes home.

The overall buying experience was so horrible that never in my life I decided to go to this dealer again. But sadly ended up with them again for buying a Tata Punch for my in-laws. That too wasn’t a great experience though.

It was the same sales associate who sold me the Punch as well. There had been an incident during the Punch purchase where after enquiring about the Punch , the sales associate calls me after few days and asks me when I will make the purchase, I messaged him saying that I am still deciding between the Punch AMT and the Venue 1.0 DCT and will update him once I make the decision. For which he sent me a voice message saying that “Sir, Venue is such a bad car, it only has a 1 litre engine whereas Punch has a 1.2 litre engine” . I tell him even if the Venue has a 1 litre engine it puts up around 120 bhp whereas the Punch only has 75 bhp. The reply he gave for that was epic “Sir that’s the problem, in such a small engine Hyundai has given so much stress to the engine and is squeezing that much power and in long term use the engine will get damaged fast , but Tata is safe as 75 bhp is the safest power that a 1.2 litre engine can produce”. I literally bursted into laughter on what stupidity these guys are saying to mislead the customer to buy their product and label the competition as bad products. I called him and calmly explained to him how these days modern turbo engines can make lots of power irrespective of their displacement and told him whatever he told me should be the last time he is telling such nonsense to customers! Such is the sad state of Tata motors sales team.

Enough of the rant, let’s now go to the car itself.

The first few hours with the Tiago EV:

The night the car was delivered, I took it out for a short spin. The car already had around 80% charge. Since I couldn’t get a test drive before purchasing this was my first time inside the Tiago EV. The first thing that surprised me was the lack of any sound when the car was ON. Only the AC compressor sound can be heard. The car is pin drop silent and it’s the best tool to sneak out and in the house without anyone knowing. Depress the brake pedal, press the start/ stop button the MID cluster comes to life, and shows a message ‘Ready to Drive’. Rotate the rotary drive selector to D and take your foot off the brake pedal and the car starts moving forward. With just the tyre noise heard outside. All these makes It feels like a new gadget more than a car. Having driven different type of automatic transmissions before, the lack of any transmission in the EV was a whole new experience. I felt that there was an issue with the front passenger door that unless you give too much of pressure the door doesn’t close properly. Thought to show the same in the first service.

Living with the EV:

Since the last 4 months the Tiago has been doing my daily runabouts.

Things I like:

The instant torque- This is something that still gives me big thrills. In D mode the car is very relaxed and the torque delivery is very linear. But in S mode, the instant torque is so addictive and makes zipping around the city so much fun. Overtakings are so much joyful in the EV. In an IC powered automatic car when you plan to overtake the car in front, you put your foot down and after a slight delay the gear downshifts, and the car gains speed and pulls away when it reaches the power band. But in the EV there is no such delay, press the accelerator and before you blink the car leaps forward. That too at whatever speed you are doing, the torque is available right at the disposal. I’m having so much fun driving the EV. Remember the Tiago is one of India’s most affordable electric car with a not so great spec sheet. I can only imagine how much fun the more powerful EVs would be. Before I got the Thar I used to drive a 2017 Octavia vRS, with a stage 1 tune from APR putting around 300bhp. I have had so much fun with that car. But since the low slung sedan was not an ideal option for my work drives which included construction site visits and minor off roading at times I ended up selling the vRS and got the Thar. I still miss the vRS for my daily drives, but after the Tiago EV came my daily drives have started becoming FUN ! Yes the Tiago EV will loose its steam once it reaches triple digit speeds but for my specific use which is running around the city this is more than sufficient. Once you live with an EV for few days, you will love it ! It’s the perfect city car.

The suspension- I am really impressed by the suspension set up of the car. There is a slight firmness to the setup but it equally gobbles up the undulations and potholes giving a very relaxed ride. It is sufficiently stiff to hold the car in place when you are gunning in S mode also equally comfortable in not tossing you around when the roads gets bad.

The freedom of driving around a car with such less running cost- Before, Whenever I pay after a full tank, I used to think “damn I just filled up a week back”. Driving around started becoming an expensive hobby. That’s when the EV came as a breath of fresh air. With the excess electricity from the solar panels charging the EV, right now I have a feeling of driving around for FREE. I can go wherever I want without spending anything for fuel. I am now doing more site visits for work , visiting friends and family more often, whereas before I was lazy to fill fuel on a weekly basis.

The Range- I was pretty sure that even though Tata claims a range of 320 kms I would get only around 200 kms. Which I am getting on a regular basis. There have been days the battery reached 10% after I did 160 kms and there have been days where it had did 240 kms. It all depends on how aggressive your throttle usage is. If we drive in D mode sanely, plan and use the regen mode well, the car will definitely give around 250 kms range. But if you are driving in a spirited manner in S mode the range will reduce to the 150 to 180 mark. But most of the time I drive in D mode, and when I want that sudden surge of torque I put it in S mode.

The Regen feature- The regen feature does allow for one pedal driving within the city. I find it very convenient when I see a red signal coming up, I just modulate the throttle and the car comes to a stop. Most of the time my car is in Regen 2 because I felt it is the most comfortable and less aggressive setting. City drives includes lots of regenerative braking and everytime it recharges the battery also as well while doing so.

Things I don’t like/problems:

The fit and finish isn’t the best in my opinion. For a 12 lakh car the panel gaps, plastic quality seems to be just average. At times when I remove the rear parcel tray, the entire panel which is fitted onto the body comes off. It’s so delicate. Also the front passenger door had some alignment issue it used to close only if I give lots of pressure. For my first service I told the service people to look into the door. After I got the car from service the door could be closed with less pressure, but there was gap between the door and the body. The service people said to rectify that they had to take it to the bodyshop.

Notice the door gap.

Central locking bug- This is a very mysterious issue I am facing with the car. I have had 2 instances where the car had locked itself with the key inside and me outside the car. While I come to a hault, switch off the car, get out from the car and close the driver’s door and go behind to open the boot to take something and then I close the boot, the car automatically locks itself after 3 seconds. Two times I had been stranded with the key inside. I had to get someone from home bring the extra key and open the door. Normally if the remote key is inside the car the central locking does sense it and does not lock the car. But there is some bug in the whole central locking mechanism. Showed this to the service people and they couldn’t do anything regarding it.

The Z connect app and its remote access feature- The car has remote access feature where you can control things like the lock/unlock, AC, lights etc with a phone app. The second time I got stranded with the key inside, I downloaded the app and gave my car chassis number etc. But still it was not detecting the car. When I called the customer service they said that I need to do my KYC registration first with the dealer and after 48 hours only it will be activated. Later when I got this done, the app takes an eternity to communicate with the car. 90% of the time it doesn’t work. You press the unlock button in the app, and it just keeps on buffering and after 5 mins nothing happens. What a waste of time. If it doesn’t work properly why did they even give this in the first place. I hope at least in future software updates this gets sorted so that I can atleast open the car when I am stranded with the key locked inside !

Left Indicator not working at times- Another mysterious issue faced for few days, the left indicator didn't work for around 4 days. Later it started working.

Apple car play bugs- At times the infotainment system doesn’t recognise the phone connected. After multiple reconnecting attempts then only it works.

The light coloured seats- Something I regret choosing . For a daily use car a light colour upholstery isn’t a good idea. It gets soiled very fast and the interiors look very unpleasant. I try my best to clean the driver seat atleast once a month so that it doesn’t look like a boys hostel inside.

Never got the right seating position- I feel the seating position isn’t great in the Tiago. I always struggle to find the right comfortable position and being above 6 feet tall, the seat height still feels a bit too high for me at its lowest position.

The Charging Infrastructure- No matter how much the charging infrastructure has improved, there have been instances where I reached a public charging station and it was not working. Everyone is aggressively setting up charging stations but most of them doesn't seem to work when you need it. This can be a serious issue when you are on a highway drive and you reach a charging station with low battery and there is no other charging station nearby. So unless this gets fixed I am not confident enough to take electric cars on long highway drives and will stick to mostly drives within 200 km radius.

Other pointers:

Charging experience- In total I have done around 46 charging cycles in the EV. Around 42 of these were AC slow charging at home. Most of these were done when the battery was around 10 percent and I left the car for overnight charging. It normally takes around 8 hours for the car to charge from 10 to 100 %. 4 times I used DC fast public charging, when I wanted to add some juice for the drive ahead, all this time I have just topped up the battery for around 15 to 20 mins which gave me enough charge for my journey ahead. I found out that mostly every alternate day I put the car for charge at home. Daily usage is around 60 to 100 kms. So mostly after coming back home after work every second day I put the car for overnight charging.

The Tiago's first visit to a public charging station.

Highway drives in the EV - 95% of my use was within the city. Most of the highway drives were distances within 200 kms so that I could go and come in a single charge. Just once I took the car on a 300 km round trip, in that trip I charged the car at a restaurant which had a DC fast charger. The car had around 20% charge left and in around 40 mins of fast charging it was topped up to 80%. And I paid around 200 Rs for that. One thing I noticed that is on open highways the charge gets reduced drastically. The main reason being the constant throttle input at around 80 kmph which depletes the battery fast. Cruise control also doesn’t help much since the car is constantly giving power to maintain that speed. The city is its ideal place where the stop start traffic and constant regen keeps the battery happy.

Taken during a recent highway drive.

Service costs till date- The car has a service internal of 7500 kms. There was a service at 1000 kms which was more of a checkup , where they just did some software update and tried fixing the front passenger door which eventually led to a big door gap. I drove around with that for around 7000 kms and decided to get it fixed during the second service. During the second service they fixed the door gap and also filled transmission fluid and an underbody anti rust treatment. Which all costed around Rs 3500.

A good sized boot with almost flat folding rear seats means the Tiago EV has started to do the beater duties. It easily accomodated 2 sets of my motorcycle tyres which my Thar could have never even dreamt of.

Is an EV a good option for everyone?

No ! It makes sense only for the people who has atleast 1000 kms per month of usage. As a primary car it doesn’t make sense. Still I’m not convinced on the highway manners of the EV and the charging infrastructure. It’s good to have another IC engine car for long drives and keep the EV for the city drives. Also it’s best for those people who have a private parking space with a charging port so that the car can be left for overnight charging. If you have solar panels at home that produce excess current then thats a great thing. Relying just on public chargers for charging will end up being such a waste of time waiting for the car to be charged.

So the EV is not for everyone, but for the user who ticks all the above boxes it is a wonderful option.

Am I going to buy only electric cars going forward ?

No. As much as I love the EV I equally love my other cars as well. I still love the feeling of cranking the engine and hearing the sound of the exhaust every time I push the pedal. Each gearshift is a wonderful feeling. But the electric cars are not as bad as we think. It is really peppy and convenient to drive, making it quite fun in a way of their own. We are so lucky to have both of the cars co existing together at the same time and having the opportunity to experience both of them. Getting stuck in traffic is boring, daily commutes are boring, for those I feel an electric car is a good option. With its instant torque and low running cost it is the perfect commuting tool. But for the rest I would still prefer an IC engine. Anyways for the next 5 years I think the EV will do my daily duties.

Conclusion:

The Tiago has made my life much easier in the past 4 months and having clocked around 10,000 kms, my fuel bills have come down drastically. If it was in the Thar I had covered these 10,000 kms I would have spent atleast Rs 80,000 just for fuel. With the EV, I have spent just Rs 550 in total for charging that too because I used the public charger few times. If I had purchased the ICE version of the Tiago, I would have spent around 9 lakhs. For the EV I paid a premium of 3 lakhs over it. As per my current usage, I think in 5 months I can save around 1 lakh spent on fuel. And in around a year and a half I would make up the extra amount I paid for the EV. So with this basic calculation I feel the EV was a good decision. The Tiago EV has helped me save on my fuel costs and also gives good thrills at the same time. Touchwoood I havent faced any major issues with the EV yet, untill then I am a super happy EV owner !

PS: I haven’t gone into the topic of how much of an environmental impact these lithium ion batteries create and the pros/ cons of it. There are multiple threads on this forum regarding it. These are just my personal experiences and perspectives of owning an electric car in the current scenario.

Check out BHPian comments for more insights and information.