Tata Nexon EV - Long Term Report - January 2025

YOU MAY HAVE READ MY RANT about charging infrastructure in my column in the last issue, but what I didn’t talk about there was how the Nexon EV performed. As a car, it did really well. It was delivering on the amount of range it promised at the start of the trip, it proved to be effortless on the Expressway and I despite cruising at 100kmph, didn’t cause range anxiety. Out on the Expressway, cruise control proved to be a boon and kept it at a steady 100kmph for most of the drive. In Mumbai, it proved to be very useable with its small footprint and brisk acceleration, making overtaking in the city a breeze. I even took my cousins along for the drive and they were plenty comfortable in the backseat, and we had enough space in the boot for all our luggage. As a car, it works very well.

There are some bits about the Nexon EV’s interfaces that did annoy me though. Like the cruise control’s speed can be increased or decreased from the steering mounted controls, but only in multiples of two. Which is annoying if you set cruise control at 99kmph and want to increase it to 100kmph — you can’t! Another is the fact that the parking sensors don’t go off once you’ve parked and put the car in P. You’ve got to physically cancel the parking assist on the screen to turn the sensors off, otherwise it just keeps on beeping. And that the car doesn’t like the key being left inside it. I was picking a friend up from the airport, so I put the car in P and got out to help her with her bags. The security alarm went off, with the blinkers flashing and the horn going off because I left the key fob inside my pocket while doing this. Quite embarrassing. Oh, and this one time, the car got stuck in Neutral, and refused to set off until I turned off the car, locked it, unlocked it and tried again. 

These issues are software related — about how the interfaces have been programmed to communicate with the driver. And if they’re ironed out, they will just make life with the Nexon EV feel a lot more seamless. There’s still work to do from Tata Motors on this front, but I’m certain they’re pushing themselves harder than ever with how far EV competition has come

Date acquired - October 2024 

Total mileage - 2510km 

Mileage this month - 427km 

Costs this month - 0 

Overall km/kWh - 6.8