Tiago EV user review after 8,000 km and 10 months of ownership

Driving experience is fantastic at this price point. The car is quiet, smooth and surprisingly easy to drive in the city.

BHPian BS777 recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

Originally Posted by BS777

It may be too early to conclude anything as yet, will try to update after driving for another 1 month.

Sorry for the long delay, I was to update in 1 month but it's been 9 months! The advantage of this delay is that the update will be more holistic.

Our Tiago EV XT LR has completed a little over 8000 kilometers in the 10 months of the purchase. 100% of this running is within the city of Mumbai only and more than 70% of this will be within the streets of south Mumbai only. Hence my experience will be very specific to these conditions.

Driving Experience

The driving experience is fantastic at this price point. The car is quiet, smooth, and surprisingly easy to drive in the city. The “D” mode (Drive Mode) is perfectly adequate for the city and the Sports mode is now rarely used unless am looking for some extra fun once in a while.

I feel the stock tyres could have been thicker by approx 10 mm or have a slightly better grip given the higher power/torque over the ICE variant but I believe Tata has consciously made a trade-off in favour of range as this is what would matter to most of their customers. But it's not a deal breaker.

Before purchasing this car I had test-driven a large variety the cars below Rs 12 lacs onroad Mumbai and I found that the Tiago EV had the best driving experience along with the Tata Altroz (Diesel)…both in very different ways though! IMO this this ranking still stands and am very satisfied with Tiago EV in this department.

Driving Range

First of all, I would start by saying that my earlier belief that EVs give a better range in the city (due to regen) than on the highway was actually wrong. After using the car for 10 months I can say that the Tiago EV gives the best range when driven consistently between 40 to 60 km/hour in an open road. Hence in a nutshell, if driven on a highway with a controlled speed the EV will give a much better range than in the city. This is evident when I drive the Tiago EV on the Worli-Bandra sea link or the eastern/western highways of Mumbai rather than on the south Mumbai roads.

In the first 6 months of usage, I would get a range of approx. 140 to 160 kilometers in the city on full charge (calculated on the basis of resetting the trip meter to zero on 100% charging and then extrapolating the value based on 100% when the car is set for charging next when the battery drops below 20/30% when is kept for charging next). This was a shocker as was expecting to touch the 200 kilometers mark. Car is used in regen mode 2 or 3 all the time.

For some reason in the last 3 months, I started getting a range of 160 to 185 kilometers on a full charge. I believe the reason could be due to us learning to drive the EV more correctly, the weather (outside temperature) and also I don’t know if the BMS software was updated by Tata in the last service.

In the peak summer months at Mumbai, the climate system used to consume approx. 14 to 16% of the battery and in the months of November and December I see this value at 11.4% and 8.5% respectively in the ZConnect App.

On open highway-like roads with a constant 40 to 80-kilometer speed, I believe it would be possible to cross the 200-kilometer range with the aircon on all the time.

Charging Costs

In Mumbai for a household consuming over 500 units of electricity, the unit cost of electricity comes to almost Rs 15 per unit if you add all extras and surcharges (this is based on a meter from B.E.S.T.). If we add some inefficiencies in charging the cost of running should be a little below Rs 3 per kilometer assuming a range of 150 kilometers.

In the last 10 months, I have never fast charged the car and charged only via overnight slow charging in our apartment block.

Getting a specific EV charging connection from B.E.S.T would help reduce the costs significantly but I have not yet done it.

Tata Motors ZConnect App

Wasted opportunity – perpetual connection issues, slow response from app, poor user interphase, and for some reason unless you have your location service of your phone on the app does not work – why??

Tata has so many technology and software companies under its group, Tata should have done a lot better in this department.

Niggles

Overall experience is quite niggle free but there are 2-3 places where I get some minor sounds especially when I drive on a slightly rough road or paver-blocked road. This sound does not come all the time but sometimes it wakes up! To be honest, I hear those sounds more because it's an EV, had it been an ICE these sounds would have been largely masked by the sound of the engine.

I know the sources of the sounds but somehow the service centre engineers were not able to resolve them – I believe out of laziness or don’t care attitude rather than an actual possibility to so it.

Servicing Experience

The 2 free services of the car were done at Wasan Motors (Chembur). Overall I find that the service advisors are helpful and try their best but in general, I feel that knowledge specific to EVs is lacking and at the same time the engineers/technicians on the floor need to improve in being able to provide resolutions to complaints.

With a growing and significant increase in EV sales by Tata, it would be great if Tata Service centers would have separate/dedicated Service Advisors and engineers who take care of EVs and a separate set that takes the case of ICE as this can help in specialized domain knowledge especially in a new field like EVs. For example in the initial service (1 month's service) I complained that the range I was getting was too less viz a viz promised and the service advisor switched on the car and showed me the remaining range mentioned on the display which looked ok. I tried explaining to him that this is not correct and the best way to calculate the range etc but it all seemed to bounce over his head and he had no clue how to calculate the real on-ground range.

Conclusion

Looking at all these points would I recommend the Tiago EV or would I buy a Tiago EV if I still had not done so as yet – Absolutely YES.

For us, this has been a primary car for all our city errands and at the same time fun to drive. The XUV700 is our primary car for outstation runs.

For long-distance highway runs I would not recommend EVs anyway since I am not a person who likes to drive with a constant lookout for chargers on the way and then wait for 1 to 2 hours to charge the car. I prefer to stop for a break when I wish to and not when the car needs to!

Overall at the price point of below Rs 12 lacs on the road, I believe the Tiago EV is a great option both from the point of view of driving dynamics and economy.

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