With longer-range Nexon, Tata Motors aims to solve range anxiety of EV

Company feels target customers will be those who wants to use electric vehicle for inter-city travel

Tata Motors, which is the largest player in India’s nascent electric passenger vehicle industry today unveiled the long range variant of the popular Nexon model looking to solve the range that EVs currently face.

Launched as an extension to India’s bestselling EV, the new Nexon EV MAX offers an ARAI-certified driving range of 437 km due to its larger battery pack. The company also has plans to launch electric cars with a minimum range of 500 kilometres and advanced technology features, targeting buyers in domestic markets and abroad.

“The practical world battery range has gone up over 35 percent over the existing Nexon, Given that the real world range of the standard Nexon is 250 km, expect the EV Max to provide approximately 333 km of real-world range,” said Anand Kulkarni, vice president of product line and operations at Tata Passenger Electric Mobility

Kulkarni said that the concept behind a longer range Nexon was due to the realisation that there can be different models based on use cases. “For instance people who want to use it intra-city may not want to invest heavily on expensive batteries.Yet there are some who want to use the vehicle as a single car and for inter-city travel also.

The Nexon EV Max democratises that option and gives the option of much longer distance and breaks the myth that EV cannot be of multi-purpose use,” he said pointing out that Nexon EV Max was not a substitute for the existing Nexon as the use cases are different.

The problems that automakers have faced while increasing the range of an EV is the extra weight that comes with a larger battery pack. The Nexon EV Max has a 40 KWh battery pack as compared to that of 30.2 KWh of the Nexon EV.

Tata Motors’ engineering teams have used the concept of combining multiple electronic units in order to save weight while energy loss has been minimised through weight optimisation and low rolling resistance on the tyres.

“The sheer fact that we have increased capacity by 33 percent means there is going to be at least 70-80 kgs of weight increase. That’s not something that could be easily compensated. We have been able to increase the battery package efficiency by at least 7-8 percent,” Kulkarni said.

Tata has also earmarked $1 billion of its own money to fund its EV plans and by 2025, Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran expects electric models to make up a quarter of its sales.

Tata Motors have benefited heavily from support from its group companies. “Today the level of localisation of components for us is significant. Tata Auto components currently manufacture a host of components for us including the battery, the motors and some parts of cooling systems. We will continue to invest to localise the value chain in the country,” Kulkarni said.

Similarly, the company is working with another group firm Tata Power to build charging infrastructure. “We are working with Tata Power to map out key routes, highways with high-density traffic and hot spots in cities to serve as fast charging spots,” Kulkarni said.