Tata Nexon EV Max Review – More Range, More Features | First Drive

It has brought evs within the reach of the masses, offering a good mix of space, practicality, features performance and enough rage for urban commutes, but the achilles heel of the nexon eevee has always been intercity travel. Its modest real world range, coupled with the lack of public charging infrastructure in the country, has restricted it to people. Looking for a city runabout well thats, where the nexon ev max comes in max here, signifies a bigger battery, a range in excess of 400 kilometers, which makes intercity travel also a realistic possibility in an ev under the 20 lakh price bracket. Plus it offers more performance and more features, but is it enough to make you look past ice and make that switch to bv well thats? What were here to find out, but before we do that do remember to subscribe to the channel and click on the bell? Icon so that you get notified every time we go live with new content on auto. Today, Music tata has not made any major changes to the appearance of the nexon evmax visually. The only noteworthy changes are the introduction of a new intensity exterior color that our test car is wearing and new 16 inch alloy wheels. The cabin gets a black and base treatment with dry arrow, motif, used generously on the dashboard trim and seat upholstery. This range, topping variant, gets leathered seat upholstery and a leather wrapped steering wheel as well. The cabin of the nexon evmax is largely similar to the nexon ev and in fact even the nexon, as is the case with the electric version of the nexon.

You get. These blue highlights on the dashboard and its been carried over to the evmax as well, but you do get a handful of new features which help uplift the general ambience of the cabin and give it a more premium appeal. First and foremost, is this gear selector, with this display it is still a round dial, but the display is crisp and it shows which gear youve selected park – reverse neutral drive in fact park is a new addition. The nexon ev does not get a park mode. You just have neutral, so every time you come to a stop, you want to park the car you put a neutral, pull the handbrake and leave the car next to it are buttons for sport, mode and eco mode. Activating sport mode will make this dial the display on this gear. Selector dial go red and the display on the instrument cluster also goes red in eco mode. It goes green and if you press those modes again, you exit those modes and come back to your regular city mode, which is the default mode. Whenever you start the car behind the rotary gear, selector is the electronic parking brake toggle and just behind that is the auto hold function button which basically means every time you come to a stop say at a red light. You dont have to keep pressing the brakes to keep the car stationary it automatically stays put in its place to the left of.

It is a button which is a new addition for the nexon evmax, because you get multiple regen modes in the car, so you can increase it to level three or you can turn it completely off to level zero well get to regen in a bit. While we talk about the driving and onward performance of the vehicle behind that you get a slot for wireless phone charging, nice addition to the features list, but it does take up a lot of space that was earlier available as store its face in the nexon and Nexon eevee Music, aside from these features, the instrument cluster is a digital uh, analog affair. Your speedo is analog, but there is a digital display. Next to it, which gives you all the details, all the relevant information, you need uh multiple displays as well and changes bases the drive mode. Thats been selected, the touchscreen remains the same, its the same seven inch unit source from harman. The functionalities also remain the same. You get android auto apple carplay, but in addition to automatic climate control, you also have an integrated air purifier, which is a neat addition and the fact that its been integrated within the aircon setup of the vehicle is also a nice touch. Notable features you get with the nexon ev max is the sunroof, auto dimming rear view, mirror theres, also automatic headlamps electrically adjustable mirrors as well, and you also get ventilated seats in this top of the line trim.

You get three levels of adjustment and they are quite effective, weve been driving around since morning and its bright and sunny and very hot outside, and the seats are definitely quite effective, along with a 10 mm compromising ground clearance. Due to the addition of the bigger battery pack, the floor has also been raised by a centimeter or two reducing maximum headroom slightly, and also resulting in a more knees up seating position for those in the rear. However, boot space has not come down. Nexon evmax also boasts a healthier list of safety features that include all four disc brakes and esp, in addition to dual front airbags. Abs hill hold assist and hill descent control that were already part of the nexon ev safety package. The nexon evmax comes with a bigger battery pack. This 40.5 kilowatt hour battery pack gives it a range. A claimed range of 437 kilometers. Compare that with the regular nexon ev, which had 312 kilometers. It does mean that intercity travel as tata claims is a more realistic possibility. Well range, of course, the claimed range especially has to be taken with a pinch of salt, so 437. We would actually probably go with a more conservative, real world figure of 300, maybe even 350 kilometers, but its unlikely that youll get more than that and with that sure you can drive. If say you live in delhi, you can drive to chandigarh or you can drive to agra. So, yes, you can do intercity travel as long as youve got charging sorted out at your destination.

Aside from that, the bigger battery pack also means an increase in weight, but there is an increase in power and torque as well. Power has gone up to 143 bhp and torque has gone up to 250 newton meters. What that means is 0 100 kmph time has improved and it now stands at 9 seconds is what tata claims the added weight courtesy of the bigger battery pack, as well as additional equipment warranted retuning of the suspension out on the road, the nexon, ev maxs ride And handling characteristics are quite similar to the lighter nexon evs, while it handles quite well. The ride. Quality is on the harsher side, and the car tends to feel unsettled over bad roads. Speaking of bad roads. In order to accommodate the bigger battery pack, ground clearance has come down by 10 mm, but it is still generous enough to not be a problem. Music driving wise. What the nexon evmax gets is regeneration levels. So you get three region modes and there is level zero, which basically means no regen as their levels as the numbers suggest. The intensity of region increases with each level. So in region 3 you will have a more severe braking effect compared to region 1.. Its all about getting used to these region levels, weve, been driving for a few hours and region 3, actually makes life quite simple in the city. You can negate the use of brake in certain conditions, while youre pulling up to say a speed breaker.

You can just let go of the throttle and regen three will bring you down to a slow, comfortable speed in time. Another crucial addition complementing the increased range is that of 7.2 kilowatt ac fast charging support that can charge the car from zero to hundred percent. In six to seven hours, this wall mounted charger adds rupees 50 000 to the price, but we certainly think its well worth the cost. Considering regular ac charging with a 15 amp socket will take around 15 hours. For us, the nexon ev max makes a lot of sense because of the added features because of the added advantage of a 7.2 kilowatt ac, fast charger support because of better performance. And, of course, the range is definitely a big plus uh realistically compared to the regular nexon ev youll get about 100 200 20 130 kilometers more, and that is definitely a big plus. But it is still not reassuring enough for you to maybe do a lot of intercity travel. You can obviously go to destinations within, say a 200 to 250 kilometer radius comfortably. But you know it would still make more sense as a city, runabout and uh thats. What the nexon ev did well, and that is something the nexon evmax does even better tata. Nexon evmax is now on sale, priced between rupees, 17.74 lakhs and rupees 19.24 lakhs extra, which means it commands a premium of under 2 lakh rupees wherein to variant compared to the nexon ev.

An increase in real world range of around 50 percent at only an 11 increment in price sounds like a good deal, especially with all those extra comfort and safety features and when you factor in the considerably lower running cost vis a vis, a petrol or diesel option.