Govt Officials Prefer Hyundai Kona Over Tata & Mahindra Electric Cars

State-owned Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) has placed order for Hyundai’s electric SUV Kona, after reportedly facing issues with Tata and Mahindra’s electric cars.

Top government officials like Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister Raj Kumar Singh, and NTPC’s Chairman and MD Gurdeep Singh have started using Hyundai Kona as their official vehicle.

Top officials at policy think tank NITI Aayog are reportedly also interested in the Hyundai.

The Hyundai Kona is priced at ₹23.71 lakh after FAME II subsidies and this is almost double the prices of Tata Tigor Electric and Mahindra e-Verito electric. The Kona, however, has a battery (39.2kWh) almost three times larger. It has a range of 452 km, as against Tata Tigor’s 140km.

EESL MD Saurabh Kumar pointed out that Kona’s running cost is “just 40 paisa/km” which makes it extremely economical compared to diesel or petrol cars.

Tata has delivered 500 Tigors and Mahindra has supplied 1,000 e-Veritos to EESL so far. EESL had ordered 10,000 electric cars from the two companies in September 2017. EESL has now decided to limit the order to 3,000 cars by March 2020.

Earlier, it was reported that senior government officials were refusing to use EVs made by Mahindra and Tata because of poor range and performance. Officials claims that Tata Tigor had issues related to AC cooling, sudden battery discharge, inability to charge and pick-up. The issues were, however, sorted after a delay.

“The performance of Tata Motors is found to be below par and EESL will not accept delivery of any new vehicle till all the issues with the existing cars have been rectified,” EESL had said in a notice to Tata in April 2019.

Tata Motors had denied the claims stating that they delivered products “in line with the technical specifications of the tender.”