Hyundai is all set to launch its first electric vehicle in India next year and its none other than the Kona. the pure electric car will go on sale in first half of 2019. It is also supposedly one out of the 8 models that are expected to be launched by Hyundai between this year and 2020.
The Kona electric will arrive as CKD with assembly at HMIL's facility in Tamil Nadu. The Kona uses a 140 kw (204 PS and 395 Nm) electric motor offered with two battery packs. The smaller battery pack with 39.2 kWh gives a claimed range of 240 km while the bigger 64 kWh battery further increases the range to 390 km. It can hit 100 km/hr in just 9.7 seconds and a top speed of 155 km/hr. With a fast charger, it can be charged to 80% in 54 minutes and regular home electric socket-based charging will take about 6 hours.
As far as the price goes, it is going to be very high. If we take the UK pricing as reference, when converted to Indian currency, the Kona would cost somewhere between 26 to 32 lakhs. But the company is hoping for a GST cut from 12% to 5% and also that the subsidies from the FAME scheme will boost the sales.
What is a bit concerning is how Hyundai plans to set up the charging infrastructure. Whether they will run it independently or leave it to 3rd party vendor for the managements is the big question here.
I feel that Hyundai is making a big move. They are going to be the first movers, if others such as Nissan (the Leaf is almost around the corner it seems) don't beat them to it. I also feel that the first movers will also face the classic effects of Innovation Diffusion Theory. The volume of innovators and early adopters at this price range is going to be rather small. But the advantages of introducing the first pure electric car, setting up the charging infrastructure and other allied services in the beginning stage is a huge boost for Hyundai.
I'm a huge petrol head. I love stick shift and like to go for engaging drives. I love to rev the engines, listen to the exhaust note and try to match the revs in gear shifts. But now that electric cars are starting to make a foray into our markets, I wonder how its going to be like driving an iPhone. I mean there won't be engines for sure, there won't be any exhaust note, there won't be any vibrations, so hows it going to be engaging to drive an electric vehicle. (I am talking about the regular electric vehicles and not the Tesla's with their fancy ludicrous mode and all)
I hope the car companies would consider adding fake exhaust sounds that we can add to the car via software updates. I'd take the Dodge Challenger Hellcat SRT exhaust, thank you very much. The kind of things that AI and IOT will do and is doing now in auto industry is mind boggling.
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