The electrification race has already started in India, and now every brand is developing its contender. MG already has four cars in their lineup for India, out of which ZS EV is the only purely electric one. It has a 44.5kWh battery offering a driving range of 419 kilometers, but it costs more than ₹20 lakhs—the exact price range being: ₹21-24.7lakhs.
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Rajeev Chaba, President & MD, MG Motor India, told PTI:
“Our next product after SUV Astor, we have been thinking about an EV, and now we have been very encouraged with the absolute clarity from the government side that EV is the way to go.”
Crossover EV
While there are no exact details about their next EV addition to the lineup, we know it will be significantly affordable with a lower battery & range. MG has not confirmed building a new design or picking one from their globally available cars, but this EV for India will be a crossover. He also said:
“We have taken the decision that we are going to introduce an EV by the end of next financial year.” On the expected price, he said it will range from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 15 lakh and will target the mass segment of personal electric mobility. It is actually a kind of a crossover, and this is going to be based on a global platform, which we are going to develop, and this will be an EV for the mass market for all the emerging markets, including India.”
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Localized Elements
To meet the government’s guidelines for the automobile sector’s production-linked incentive plan(PLI), MG will localize parts such as the motors & battery assembly and various other components.
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Rajeev Chaba also talked about catering to the Indian market, specifically with their upcoming EV:
“We will customize this car for the range and the Indian regulations and customer taste…It will be specially tailored for India. We will start working on it right now. This is the kind of tipping point that we have been talking about that if we are able to do a car between Rs 10 lakh and Rs 15 lakh, that can give us good volumes. So hopefully, this would be our volume EV car.”
Expected Price
The upcoming crossover EV could be a fresh design or one of the EVs exhibited in the 2020 Auto-Expo, such as the E200 micro-car or the Marvel X SUV. These are rebadged cars from other SAIC brands.
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This upcoming EV is expected to arrive by March 2023 & be priced between ₹10-15lakhs. It will go against the Nexon EV, a forthcoming electric version of XUV300, and perhaps the Venue EV.
