Nexon.eV Facelift 2023 - Owners Review at 1000km

Stats

Model: Nexon.eV 2023 Facelift
Variant: Fearless+ Medium Range (30 kWh)
Month of Delivery: Jan 2024
Odometer: 1000+ km
Commute type: 55km daily, mostly in choc a bloc traffic of Delhi NCR
Driving Style: Aggressive. Not the usual EV driver, I make use of the perky engine to rev past cars. However I drive only in Eco mode, Regen 3
Avg Range: 200kms (1% battery gives 2km running)
Charging: Always use the company provided slow charger. Charge it every 3 days for 9-10 hours. Keep battery between 10-100%
Also own: Suzuki Brezza, Suzuki Alto. Upgraded from VW Polo.

Ownership Review

-          Pros:

o   Performance: Peppy. Love the engine and the power it gives. Sports mode gives me goosebumps and gotta be careful on it but I love driving on it.

o   Comfort: While most people talk about the noiseless cabin and vibration free drive, which are both true, I personally prefer and love the single pedal drive thanks to the regen 3 feature. I hated braking for speed breakers and constantly moving my foot around. Now with regen 3, I just stop accelerating and the car brakes by itself for the speed breaker. I love it. Made my ride so much more comfortable and peaceful. I can even operate the brakes using the paddle shifters now. If I don’t feel like braking a lot, just switch regen and voila, you will drift ahead. Much needed for bumper to bumper traffic fighters like me.

o   The infotainment system including the in dash screen are well done. Great sound system.

o   You know that you are not harming the environment. Being carbon neutral or carbon negative while driving this is like doing good karma, every day. That it costs less financially is just the cherry on top.

-          Cons

o   Habit change. With an EV you have to go from refuelling once in 2 weeks to recharging twice in 1 week. From 14 days to 3.5 days. That’s a massive habit change. Needing to this in cold, rain and when you are running late is a pain. If the charger is not conveniently located or easily accessible then it’s a bigger pain. This is a hindrance. While there is no doubt significant cost savings, but there is also an extra effort associated here.
After buying the car, I realized that while as per my running I can use the MR easily, however a LR at 2 lac cost difference is still VFM. A MR with 320km claimed range gives 200km running to me. A LR with 470km range will probably give 270-300km running. Which means I can go from charging twice a week to charging once a week. Major benefit.

o   Poor Service Centres of Tata. Taking my 1 week old car to their poor service centres was a nightmare for me. The guys don’t bother to use the car seat covers and sit with greasy overalls and shoes in the new car turning my new beige mats to dark black. On complaining they half heartedly vacuumed it and gave it back. If Tata is serious about EVs, they need to come out with EV specific Service centres, Fast!

o   eV is still new in India. By this I do not mean the charger availability. I am talking about the ev manufacturers, who are still trying to perfect their cars and possibly rolling out new editions before they could perfect it. Like my Tata Nexon.ev which while done beautifully from a sales POV. From a user perspective, there are way too many niggles and issues to fix. My less than month old car, has gone to the service centre for repairs thrice now and twice I have had to call the RSA for support. Why? Thanks to the persistent issues in the car which Tata has not been able to fix. Are the issues resolved after all these visits. No. They are continuing issues as Tata themselves are unsure of what to do and how to fix this. I have heard this from numerous car owners now (incl the biggest users of EV cars – drivers of BluSmart cabs) about the common issues in the car and also from the RSA guys who repeat similar harrowing tales. What tales and issues? Read on.

ISSUES I FACE

-          Faulty Door Sensor: When you turn off the car, the infotainment system activates the one hour mode, which ideally should turn off when the driver side door opens. However here, it does not. Why? I found out on my first trip to the service centre that the driver door sensor that recognizes door opening, is faulty. Not just in my car but apparently, in all cars including the Safaris and Harriers. A modified part is said to be in the works for this to replace in all cars.
Temporary Solve: Touch the sensor everytime you step out to activate it and stop the infotainment system.
Permanent Solve: None Till Date

-          Faulty Software Update: During the same first visit to the service centre (Noida Sector 5), they decided to update the software version of the car. While I am thinking why didn’t they do this before delivering the car to me, I nevertheless agree, being a lover of all updates. Little do I know that the update will make my life tougher. After the update, there is a notification sound in the car that comes every few seconds. Why? No reason. How do I stop it, I can’t. I tried finding a pattern to the sound but to no avail. Thus, I take the car on its second trip to the service centre, in its second week with me. The Service team take 2 hours and update the VCU of the car and declare, all is well. I am happy, I turn on the car and start driving back, only to brake in 10 seconds. The noise had come back. I call the SA and am told, “oh, its back? Well there’s nothing I can do right now, take it home, theres nothing wrong with the car, I’ll let you know if and when I get a solve to this issue”.
:/
What do you say to this? Back home, I start using it as is, with a slight change of increasing the speaker volume to drown the notification sound.
Temporary Solve: Turn on the speaker system.
Permanent Solve: None Till Date

-          Faulty Small Battery: One Sunday afternoon, as I am getting ready to go out, I press the unlock button in the key to open the car. But it doesn’t work. Surprised I try a few more times with no luck. Same with the touch button on the door handle. A quick check of the car key and its confirmed that the key has sufficient battery. I unlock the car using the manual override key and get in. Trying to turn the car on, but to no avail. They car just wont respond. No lights, nothing. Clearly the starter battery is dead. But why? I am definite that there was no electric unit on when I parked it (a few hours ago only). No lights, not even the malfunctioning sound system was on so why? I then call the RSA, inform them of the situation and within 45 mins I have a guy on a scooty standing next to the car with a spare battery. He jump-starts the car and promises it wont stop now. I ask, why this happened? Then he opens the can of worms. This apparently is a common problem and is quite regular in Tata EVs. The small battery drains abruptly and quickly for no known reason. It could be a poor wiring, or a leak somewhere or just thanks to the amazing software of the car. This is why I will go on my third visit to the service centre now, within 3 weeks from delivery. Temporary Solve: Call RSA
Permanent Solve: None Till Date

-          Gear Stuck Issue: Amongst all of this, there have been times when the car has refused to start itself. This has happened twice, with me. Once with the service centre guy sitting and driving the car as well. What happens? After pressing the start / stop button, the gear doesn’t move from netural. The car keeps saying, press brake pedal, despite me pressing it with all my might. When this happened with the service engineer, he just kept trying to restart the car multiple times and luckily it worked after 10-15 mins. However he didn’t bother to investigate the cause of the issue and solve it. Merely saying it was a temporary issue and wont happen again. Unfortunately, it did happen again, 2 weeks later only.
Temporary Solve: try, try and keep trying till it starts
Permanent Solve: None Till Date

-          Faulty Window Functionality: This is the latest development. As if the existing problems weren’t enough. The driver side window is faulty. First when you press down and then press up, instead of going up, it goes down. Next, when you long press it to go all the way up, once it reaches the top, it automatically rolls back down halfway and stays there. First time it happened, I was worried that I’ll have to leave it open like that. Thankfully, by slowly rolling it up and not long pressing it, it stayed an was able to close the window. So that’s the solve I have for it for now.
Temporary Solve: Don’t long press it, just slowly roll it up.
Permanent Solve: NA

Other Issues: Facing all these issues, I start talking to more people and doing internet research and I got to know of a few more common issues in the car. Such as

-          Stuck Charging gun: Where the gun just doesn’t get released despite pressing the unlock button. Solution?
Temporary Solve: Call RSA
Permanent Solve: None Till Date

-          Battery sudden drop: I have heard (thankfully not faced), that sometimes, after charging to 100% SoC, the battery suddenly starts dropping by 1% every few minutes and discharges much faster than the Range. Why? Not even God knows, let alone Tata.
Temporary Solve: Don’t charge to 100%, keep it to 90% at most
Permanent Solve: None Till Date, just hope they replace the battery with a new one as part of the warranty.

 

Final Words: I like-d the car. In fact I loved it when and before I bought it. But after all these daily issues, I majorly regret buying a TATA. Despite being an erstwhile Tata motors fan and supporter of ‘Made in India’, I now have put off on buying Tata again and have asked a few colleagues to hold their tata motors purchase (who didn’t need a lot of convincing after my experience). For a 2-week old owner of a car, having paid 17+ lacs, this is sheer torture. I hope someone at Tata Motors is listening and not just watching their growing stock prices. Swearing off all things Tata till then.

Wasting public money!

The government recently announced that it would spend over 200 crore rupees on its image makeover over the next one year's time (yesterday's front page news in HT). While it makes all political sense and can be very much expected from our dear Congress party to indulge in such wasting of taxpayers money, What I do not understand is why is this issue not being centralized and made a big deal of. Essentially, why is this issue not being sensationalized by the media. When a 100 odd crore scam (the CWG scam) could gain several months worth of  footage and headlines, then why is a clear misuse of public money being allowed to be made. It is extremely obvious that the ruling party plans to use this money for nothing other than blowing its own horn. Heck, there isnt even a need to read between the lines here as the government itself claims "The UPA policy managers believe that the government has been hit by negative perception in the minds of people because of social activist Anna Hazare's campaign against corruption and to rectify this, 200 crore would be spent towards the image building of UPA in this crucial election year". This allocation is four times the amount the government usually spends on public advertising. This, coming in a year when the revenues has decreased and the deficit increased is simply revolting! It is a sheer waste of public money.

What's worse is that the media too is not interested in the least in raising the issue, since they well know, that these funds shall eventually land in their own pockets through government advertisements, press appeasements and what not. They are the ultimate beneficiaries, and therefore, no media house in the country would dare raise their voice against this move. Heck, they would be rejoicing at the quadrupling of the budget and already readjusting their balance sheets.

Disgraceful. What's worse is that one can do nothing to stop this act from happening and only wait till the election day to express one's disgust!

Gandhi-torials

I fail to understand the fairness in printing half page advertisements in newspapers on the birth/death anniversaries of the Gandhi families! Why do all government departments spend so much money to venerate the Gandhi scions as if trying to outrace the other by placing a bigger better positioned advertisement (on the taxpayers money of course). It seems as if they are all marking their attendance by doing so and the minister who's department  failed to put an ad would be reprimended by the Gandhi boss. And if one has to pay homage to our ex-prime ministers, then why just Indira or Rajiv (ironically not even Nehru makes it to the list)? What about the rest of the Prime ministers, are they not worthy of homage? Just who makes this list? O right, that Mrs. S Gandhi.!