After Ford, Maruti too pulls out of International Consortium for EVs called xEV. This consortium created about 1 year ago consisted of Industry leaders like Tata-Mahindra-Maruti-Suzuki-Toyota-Ford.

What is interesting to note is that more than Toyota & Ford it is the Indian companies Tata & Mahindra who have developed and showcased and even sold Electric cars. (Actually if not for the stupid Cyrus “Mystery” even Tata Nano EV would have been on the streets by now because they had showcased the car around the same time as Reva NXR aka E2O.

Toyota & Suzuki wanted most of the …research to take place in Japan for which Maruti put its foot down. Maruti also seem to think only hybrid vehicles will sell in India which is wrong. Hybrid vehicles are NOT ELECTRIC VEHICLE AT ALL. Or to put in in another way… all existing vehicles are started with a battery… so technically ALL Internal Combustion Engine vehicles are “HYBRID”.  But with latest hybrid electric they want to:

1. Increase the size & cost of the battery…
2. add electric motors to the rear wheel and make the mess that ICE cars are an even complex & a greater mess.
3. Pay for 2 fuel… expensive Petrol & Battery
4. And at every 5,000 or 10,000 kms you have to take the car for ICE part service/maintenance… which means more expenses!!!

All this to travel a distance less than 100kms daily. Now this is a thing that an electric car like E2Ocan do with ease so is it not wise to buy an electric car and forget all your ICE car worries?

So coming back to the main story… it seems now that only Tata-Mahindra-Suzuki-Toyota remain in the Consortium… of these Mahindra already has 3 vehicles out for sale- passenger (E2O, E2O+, VeritoEV) & 1 commercial… while Tata has its Tata Nano EV… all this leaves Suzuki & Toyota light years behind… something unimaginable say 15yrs ago!!!

Mahindra most probably is trying to wriggle out of this messy consortium by saying they want their part-makers to be on board probably by putting in cash which most of the part makers might not want to do… because as they already have a huge market. So we can soon expect Mahindra also leaving the consortium and a few months later Tata too… once the Mystery at Tata is settled for good 😉

Come to think of this we at PlugInCaroo have been screaming at Tata & Mahindra for sitting on their fat asses when Chetan Maini put them so much ahead of some of the BEST AUTOMOBILE COMPANIES IN THE WORLD!!!

India lost half a decade since Reva NXR was displayed in 2009 yet we still lead the world in the number of vehicles built… even Tesla and Nissan have only passenger vehicles to boast.

Now only time will tell if the consortium called xEV will succeed or fail!