Why the Tata Tiago EV was chosen over Punch to be the electric car for the Indian masses | TOI Auto

Music, Music, Music, Music, foreign Music Music has been in existence and in a very, very popular way, with the ice vehicle. So when we decided to electric or make this into an electric vehicle, there were obviously certain problems that had to be solved. First and foremost was about deciding the exact size of the batteries and therefore the space underneath the car to be able to accommodate these batteries. The second one was about the engine compartment in which the motor would have gone, but when you do, these kind of things, very importantly, is because the mass of the vehicle changes and the weight balance also changes. You need to look at the chassis requirements and when you look at that, two or three challenges become very, very apparent. Ah, the first one is that you need to have ensure that the structure is capable of meeting all the safety requirements, even with the addition of the mass, so weve had to therefore run additional uh safety programs in order to reinforce the structure appropriately. The second one is because the mass has changed. Some safety systems like brakes, steering abs and suspensions can also undergo a change in order to optimize it in a perfect manner. So all of these systems have changed in order to make sure that even with the additional Mass the car meets the requirements. The third aspect is, you need to decide on how the battery is going to be integrated within the floor in an existing manufacturing plant and therefore, a significant amount of study towards that aspect where the battery could be mounted in the attack time within the production line.

Had also to be undertaken and our teams worked right from day one to make sure that all of these problems were solved and therefore we have today the Thiago Music. So one of our objectives was very clear that we did not want to change the occupant package inside the car as compared to its ice version, because the ice version is a significantly appreciated for the small footprint and yet very good space available inside. Therefore, if you see we havent modified the floors, we havent modified the occupant package and the car continues to be as comfortable and as spacious as it was with its ice version. Foreign Music has a very unique requirement and you need to look at how people use the product and what use cases do they apply to? The hatchback is something which is a very versatile product and some people use it in order to travel long distances. While there are others who tend to use it only for short commutes but may be very frequent commutes, therefore, when we were configuring, this we said there were two or three things that we had to make sure that we do not violate the first one is the Ziptron promise and in the ziptron promise we have said that we would always give a car which is uh at least 250 kilometers certified range or above and then, of course, we also wanted to do a higher uh higher capacity vehicle, which would enable people to take Longer distance Journeys, and that is how the Genesis of the two sizes of batteries came about and we were able to do a 24 kilowatt hour on the long range and a 19.

2 kilowatt hour on the medium range now uh, the 19.2 kilowatt hour medium range battery Gives 257 kilometers as the certified range and the long range gives 315 kilometers as a certified range. Therefore, two different options become available to our customers depending upon what their use cases are and how they would like to utilize it, foreign Music. We have already opened up bookings a couple of months back on day, one we had 10 000 bookings. It was an overwhelming response. Uh. We also completed 20 000 bookings a few weeks back and if you look at the data from this, overwhelming majority of people have actually chosen to go with the longer range version and therefore we we can say that while there are, there is a number of people Who want to do the medium range? Also there is. The bias is towards the longer range vehicles, foreign Music, so every product has a specific use case and a customer base right. So, while you are right and saying that more and more preferences now towards SUV body styles – and there is a consumer shift towards these body styles – the hatchback continues to be a very popular body style. Even today. In fact, it has a large base, even in its eyes Avatar, and therefore an electric version of such a body style is also going to be very, very uh, useful to people and therefore successful internally. We have a certain Cadence of what products need to come at.

What point of time and therefore work on multiple options at the same time and the Tiago I think, fits in that particular Cadence in the most appropriate manner: Music, foreign Music. So lets look at it this way, if you track the booking interest that is seen in any product which has eyes as well as a electric version available, we see between 20 and 25 percent of the total interest uh in electrics, and that happens for Nexon. That happens for tigor as well, and therefore, if a similar kind of on thing were to be applied, this 25 percent is definitely going to happen. But because, as I said earlier, the hatchback is a very popular segment because its very versatile – and it is also one of the early cars that any family owns. We think that the numbers could be higher than that, and also well have to wait for some time to see what kind of numbers emerge.