1st EV to reach the highest motorable road!

We hope we have a clear run to umlingla, and this is going to be an adventure. You dont need seat belts, you need a parachute. Climate change is real is the reason why we dont get Clear Blue Skies or white fluffy clouds anywhere in or around our cities. Even up here in the Himalayas, things are changing. Unpredictable rains, drought, heat. Some theories also say that the global spread of viruses is due to the melting of the ice caps. Things have to change and electric cars. They are an obvious first step. Now we have driven plenty of electric cars: cars like the Nexon EV Max dont, even challenge the series yeah, of course. So now, because we are in late well head up to kardangular. Well, cardunga has done and dusted. This is the EV Max. The Nexon Emax can go places and so lets take it to the highest motorable road in the world. Lets take it to umla. Okay, hold on um thats 19 024 feet thats 1500 feet more than cardunga, but not to forget its also 2000 feet above average base camp. So theres only one way to find out right, keys, Music, foreign Music things. First, we need to get the Nixon Juiced up now. Everybody talks about how infrastructure is the big stumbling block in Mass adoption of EDS and we are in Lay as remote a city in India as it gets yet inlay. They already have a few electric buses running around.

They have a public charging facility with DC fast Chargers which are fed from a solar grid, so clean green energy and on a DC fast charger. The next one EV Max itll charge from zero to eighty percent in 56 minutes. Lee has the added convenience of AC chargers at a bunch of hotels. This one set up by lion charge at Fortune resorts in spit up now the next one EV Max. It takes six and a half hours for a full charge on the 7.2 kilowatt AC charger and we need all the charge that we can get because today is going to be a really long day: Music, my friend Vivek srivatself, who heads Marketing sales office sales and Strategy at Tata, passenger Electric Mobility once told me that range is over indexed. Basically, that means that we stress unnecessarily on Range now the Nexon EV Max it has a claimed range of 437 kilometers and when we left late this morning, it showed on the meter a remaining range of 420 kilometers. So it is pretty accurate, but you cant help but get butterflies on this drive now umlingla it is 320 kilometers away, so we should be okay, except we Are Climbing from 10 500 feet in Lay to 19 024 feet and also it is going to get colder And colder as we climb, what effect will the dropping temperatures and the steep climb have on Range? That is what we as Road testers, are out here to find out and then theres.

The other question should I be holding myself back the next on Evie Max. It is packing 143 horsepower, thats, 0 100 in 8.9 seconds. It has a spot mode and of course this is Evo India we will be experiencing the thrill of driving on this drive. Music foreign is good, for is air for the tires and a as they say this isnt, my first rodeo Ive spent plenty of time with electric cars and Ive driven plenty through ladakh and its high altitude passes, but ladakh in an Eevee. That is a first and there is a bit of learning that needs to be done. First, things first is to regenerate and harness all the energy that would be otherwise lost, especially when youre going downhill the next one EV Max it has multi mode region. So you can toggle between zero all the way up to three, depending on the terrain that youre encountering Im right now going downhill, so Im going to set it in the most aggressive level. Three and this will regenerate the batteries and also help me get a little bit more range. It also means that Ive technically got one pedal driving, so I dont need to touch the brakes just get off the accelerator and the EV Mac slows down. Speaking of the brakes now, most brake systems use a vacuum booster and up here where the air is thin and rare. The vacuum boosters dont work as well as they do when youre in the planes, but that does not affect the Nexon EV Max.

It has. What is called ivb AC vacuumless boost and active control Tech? Basically, it does not have a vacuum booster, so the same, braking performance that you get in the planes you also get up here in the mountains. The other cool thing about an electric car is that, whether youre in Mumbai or Pune, all these high altitude passes in ladakh. The car makes the same amount of power. So, unlike a combustion engine or even a hybrid which loses power, the higher up you go because the air becomes thinner, your you have the same amount of power, so even out here Ill get 0 100 in 8.9 seconds and seriously. You can feel the difference. A couple of days ago I was driving, I was support, cars and you can feel the amount of drop in power in those cars out here. This is so zippy to overtake these lumbering trucks, buses, its just a flex of the right foot and Zoop. You are out of there: Music pin, drops silence now weve driven electric cars before, and we know that they are quiet and Ive, also driven through these parts and Ive always done that in diesel cars or SUVs now driving it in this EV with zero noise. Its such a cool experience, you feel good about yourself. It feels like youre, not belching black smoke, youre, not making noise youre, not contributing to environmental degradation out here. Weve done 280 kilometers since we started, and now weve used up most of the range on reaching Hanley, and we are going to break Journey here because from here well be climbing from 15 000 to 19 024 feet at umlingla tonight.

There is also the added bonus. Hanley is the best place in India for stargazing. This is Indias only dark sky preserve and an area that restricts artificial light pollution, enabling an Exquisite Outlook of nocturnal territories, starry night skies, even the study of environmental history, the views you get of the Stars, the planets it is mesmerizing, foreign Music to top up the Batteries now to bring you all the shots that you see in this video weve had to go back and forth for the cameras a million times, and that means weve probably done twice the distance that you would do to get to Hanley from lay and thats, where The home charger comes in handy, you can plug it into any 15 amp socket and trickle charge, the Nexon EV Max wherever you are, and it doesnt get any more remote than where we are right now at Hanley, Music, foreign Music takes us on this dirt track. This will lead us to nurbale and from there we climb up to umlingla it cuts through what is a protected Wildlife Reserve. You have a lot of wildlife out here, plenty of wildlasses, beautiful, elegant creatures that you see in the baking heat of the runoff cutch and out here in the freezing cold, very Hardy animals, and the reason why we are taking this dirt track is to soak in The spectacular beauty of this region, and the reason why we can take this dirt track is because underneath we have the tried and tested ziptron architecture tested in Indian real world conditions, with all the unpredictability that Indian roads can throw at us.

As for the Creature Comforts inside, this is one step up from the Nexon that we know so well, so youll get ventilated seats, you get a wireless charger, you get a Harman sound system, you get rear disc brakes, and with that you have the electronic parking brake And also Auto hold, which well use quite a bit as we climb up. You also get an air purifier, and the aqi right now is one. You dont need an air purifier out here, just put the windows down and breathe in the fresh Breeze, the fresh air. What a joy I see these dirt roads and it brings back memories of my rally days. The instinct is to just floor it through these gravel patches, and here there is no slamming into first and screaming the engine revving it against the rev limiter, nothing, the altitude, the density of the air. It makes no difference to the performance. It gets flexed. The right foot and the next on Evie Max it just goes through so effortlessly so quickly. This is something I just cant seem to get over Music and all that is downhill and thats a great opportunity to use the multi mode region. So Ive got it in the level 3 and Im regenerating charge, so I can see the range actually moving up, which is a great relief. We got from here another 37 kilometers to go to umla so 27 from tushmalay and from there it is all climb climb.

Climbed, I think we are climbing around two and a half three thousand feet over that 20 odd kilometers. And that really is the tough part for any electric vehicle. Because, as you go uphill thats, where the battery is the electric motor really has to work hard. And your range, it drops dramatically: foreign Music need a cup of tea with a lot of sugar. Theyre like Metallica, is going full blast in my head and we still have a climb 2000 feet Music. This is where the serious bit of the challenge begins. We Are Climbing Up 3500 feet in 24, kilometers weve got 115 kilometers of range, and I must say this: road going up to umlingla is phenomenal. You could do a hill climb out here, smooth surface, but the drops well as a wise man once said on the Himalayan rally: dont eat seat belts. You need a parachute, so 17 kilometers to umlingla 117 kilometers of range. It sounds like we are there, but this climb is really really steep and that really puts a tremendous strain on the batteries we got. Another four kilometers to go and with every 100 meters were setting a new record for the highest and the furthest and electric car has ever gone on a public motorable road anywhere in the world. What a testament to make in India electric car Made in India wrote four kilometers to go. We have 60. Eight kilometers of range left next on EV Max is making it up there three kilometers to go.

We are almost there. Nineteen thousand twenty four feet: the highest motorable road, not just in India, but the world and weve made it up here in an electric car.