Tata Tiago EV - 10,000 km | 6 months of ownership

Chandraprakash G | 2024-Jan-10
10 mins 🕖

Chandraprakash G

Introduction

Detailed ownership review on 10,000 km of driving Tiago EV in City & on the Highway with rides spanning from couple of km to several thousand km on road trips.

One good thing is, until now I haven’t faced any issues such as High Voltage Critical error (HVC Error) or any other errors in my Tiago EV.

Additionally I had maintained the stock wheel and tyre and had not changed it.

10,000th km at Rameswaram, TN

Specifications

Model: Tata Tiago EV XZ Plus Tech Lux LR 7.2 kW (Fully loaded)

Battery: 24 kWh (~22 kWh usable) - Liquid cooled

Power: 55 kW (74 bhp)

Motor: PMSM Front wheel drive - Liquid cooled

Torque: 11.4 kg (kgf.m)

0-60 kmph: 5.6 sec

0-100 kmph: 13.3 sec

Brake: Front-Disc | Rear-Drum | Regen

Cost: ₹12.5 Lakh ($15,000) On-Road price incl. discounts (Chennai, TN)

PlugShare app

PlugShare website
PlugShare android app
PlugShare app store app

Driving Electric vehicle without PlugShare app is equivalent to driving without Google maps on an unknown region.

Plugshare app will have all the charging stations from DC as well as AC mapped in Google maps base and the community is fairly active and updated frequently for newer stations.
Also the trip planner in PlugShare app is a must have before starting road trip on highways to avoid getting stranded due to unplanned stop.

I always use to plan my highway charging stops which has minimum of 2 CCS guns to avoid waiting for a hour if a charging station is occupied.

I had done ~150+ check-ins in PlugShare app during past 6 months of owning the Tiago EV which might be quite high for a non EV enthusiast.

Always keep a healthy habit of checking-in to PlugShare app whenever you are pulling into a charging station and update the findings either good/bad on the comment section which will be pretty useful for others who are planning to charge there.

Drive (D) vs Sport (S) mode

Though I drive little spirited, I am quite comfortable on Drive rather than on Sports, one reason might be that, I came from owning Cruze 2.0 LTZ Manual (Diesel), So the slight delay to kick the turbocharger at 2k rpm is a muscle memory.

Added Sports in city especially on bumper to bumper traffic is a little annoying as even slight press of the accelerator with the toe would launch the car with no delay in response time which is not preferred.

I use Sports occasionally once a week or so to have some fun, but 99% of the time using the Drive mode, and even in this mode the car accelerates to top speed of 120 kmph but just that the acceleration is slightly tapered off at the peak 10% to pump out more range which is perfect for everyday drive.

Kasimedu Fishing Harbour, Chennai

City driving

Range

Driving in the City with AC ON all the time at 26º C gives around 150 km with 10% to spare (~15 km for every 10%).

Even with heavy traffic, longer AC time along with spirited driving would still give around 130 km with 10% to spare.

Experience

Driving in the City is the Tiago EVs natural habitat and that’s what the car is designed for, it’s quite fun to drive in and around City as the range is more than enough even with peppy driving.

There are times I would be driving all day long for 200-250 km visiting multiple places in and around the city, So I usually plan my charging stop after driving for 130-150 km at around 10-20% SoC remaining and just charge-up for 30 mins up to 85% SoC at full blast which is 18 kW (0.8 C) for Tiago EV at DC fast charging station and will hit the road again.

There are around 50+ DC Fast charging stations in Chennai and still growing rapidly, so I never need to worry about searching for working and non occupied charging station which would be just couple of km away from anywhere in City.

Highway driving

Range

Driving in the highway with AC ON all the time at 26º C gives below range with corresponding speed.

80 kmph → 160 km with 10% to spare (~16 km for every 10%)
90-100 kmph → 140 km with 10% to spare (~14 km for every 10%)


If going to get stranded or not having enough battery %, simply turn OFF the AC and ride pretty slow to get the maximum amount of range mentioned below.

40 kmph → ~250 km (~25 km for every 10%)

Experience

Unlike driving in City which is quite fun, driving Tiago EV on highway is a different story.

Especially on longer road trips, if maintaining 80 kmph, need to recharge for 45 mins from 20-90% for every 150 km which is quite frustrating and not practical for majority of the people on highway run.

Highway runs with family is a big NO, unless it’s a food break, no one would like to sit on charging station for 45+ mins and that too for multiple stops!

Not to forget, if the charging station is occupied, power cut or having issues initiating, then that’s a whole another story which will get you easily stranded with little range of ~150 km.

So my advise would be to use the Tiago EV for highway runs only if you are an enthusiast and knows every single charging station in and out on the routes or you have a friend who doesn’t mind waiting on charging station for longer periods of time.

Charging cost

Highway

You will only be charging your car while on road trips going out of city on the highways, when you are travelling inside city it’s extremely rare to use DC fast chargers as the range would be more than enough to reach home for quick charge during break.

In Tamilnadu, the charging cost at CPOs ranges from ₹19/kWh (JioBP Pulse) to ₹30/kWh (Zeon charging), but average is around ₹25/kWh

I had also wrote an article about all the Charge point operators in Tamilnadu which also mentions the cost / kWh on every CPO and how to save money on charging at right stations without wasting money.

But in my opinion, at early 2024, we are not in a position to choose which CPOs to select on highway as the number of charging stations are not ample coupled with issues like being occupied, power cut, initialization issues etc.

So the moment you find an un-occupied charging station, drive into it right away and start charging until 80-85%.

City

Additionally, while you are charging at home, average cost of energy would be ~₹5-10/kWh which is at least 3X cheaper compared to charging outside at DC Fast charger for ~₹25-30/kWh.

So if you have a 7.2 kW AC fast charger installed in your home, then just visiting your home during lunch time or for tea break would be more than enough to top up the charge close to full.

Tiago EV charging at 7.2 kW AC Fast charger

7.2 kW - AC Fast charger

Types of AC chargers

1. 3.3 kW Portable AC Charger which comes with the car.

2. 7.2 kW Wall mounted AC fast charger which is optional for selected variants,
You also need a 3-phase connection to install a 7.2 kW AC Fast charger in home.

3. 11-22 kW Wall mounted AC fast charger are not yet available for Tata cars as the present OBC only supports up to 7.2 kW and in real-time it would charge at ~6.6 kW.

But during recent unveil, it seems that upcoming acti.ev architecture will support 11 kW OBC which would be available for upcoming Harrier, Safari & Sierra EV,
Also point to note, most of the luxury EVs has a 11 kW OBC incl. Tesla cars.

22 kW+ OBC are only found on two cars in the entire world,
Old BYD E6 & Old Renault Zoe which has a massive 43 kW OBC.

If you use the car only for Home to Office and vice versa and your per day travel does not exceed 100 km ever then you don’t need to 7.2 kW Fast charger
But if you travel a lot or use to drive for longer distance during weekends >150 km then 7.2 kW AC Fast charger will be quite useful.

As I have a 7.2 kW installed, usually I would be doing lot of runs in City and then while reaching home for lunch with ~50% of battery, it would be close to 100% before I finish my lunch which is quite convenient.

Also you do not need to worry about charging with your 7.2 kW (6.6 kW at OBC) frequently as it’s just around 0.3C charge rate which is completely safe to charge the car everyday.

Tiago EV with 7.2 kW AC Fast Charger

Universal unit of Power & Energy

Power = Watt
Energy = Power * Time
Energy = Watt * hour

Simple example,
If you charger with 7 kW of power for 1 hour then 7 kWh of energy is filled into the battery and in 2 hours 14 kWh and so on..

If you had taken Tiago EV LR then the battery capacity is 24 kWh,
So, if you charge with below charger,
3.3 kW AC Portable charger = 24 / 3 = ~8 hours to fully charge
7.2 kW AC wall charger = 24 / 7 = ~3.5 hours to fully charge

Tiago EV Smart key with 7.2 kW RFID Tag

RFID Tag / Card

RFID Tag / Cards makes the initialization at charging station so much easier by saving a lot of time which is wasted on fiddling with the mobile app, especially if the signal is low near the charging station, it quickly becomes a huge issue to initialize the charging.

As I travel a lot in EV, I had bought all the RFID for CPOs which are in my scope of travel, also major issue with charging stations like Tata is just in initialization delay, so once that’s solved the charging session becomes so much smooth.

In some other cases, CPOs like ChargeZone has a horrible app design, where if you are first time user, you will need at least 30 mins to initialize the charging, because even if you are at the ChargeZone station, you first need to book a slot and then need to start the charge session using that slot which is the most confusing process by any CPO.

So to avoid above scenarios, the ChargeZone RFID card will come to my rescue, with just a tap and it starts charging session without wasting any time with the app.

There is another option which is by far the best called as Auto-Initialization by reading the MAC ID of the Car, which can only be found in Tesla supercharging stations and on ABB machines, in which, all you need to do is plug the charging gun to the Car and in couple of seconds it’ll start charging automatically, which is the most convenient and is a seamless experience.

But Auto-Initialization is only found on ABB machines which are quite expensive and I had seen it only being used by Zeon Charging CPO.

Super annoying!

1. The moment stepping out of the car with smart key in pocket, the car starts honking continuously, I haven’t seen this super annoying nuisance on any other car other than Tata

No one likes their car to honk continuously while stepping out just to open the gate, So due to this bug, I need to turn OFF the car, open the gate and then turn ON the car again every time which is really frustrating.

2. Sometimes while pressing the request sensor at the door handle to unlock the car it starts honking like an intrusion alert, this is really annoying and embarrassing especially outside or at places with silent ambience.

I had completely stopped touching the request sensor due to this issue as this is quite frequent and occurs 2/5 times, so I started using the unlock button on key fob which does not misfire like the request sensor.

3. Regen level resets to Level 1 while turning ON the car, especially being Regen Level 3 user all the time, it’s pretty annoying to change the Regen level from Level 1 to Level 3 every single time while turning ON the car.

These small bugs can easily be pushed as OTA fix in couple of minutes.

4. Need to pull the fuel tank cap lever near driver seat to plug the charging gun so many times, this is fine to fill ICE fuel probably once a week/month but EV users charges their car everyday and multiple times a day during road trips, so this becomes pretty annoying considering the frequency of usage.

I hope at least in top end variants, the auto opening feature of the fuel/charging cap is provided.

Nice to have

1. The Low Voltage (LV) 12 V battery does not auto charge when the charge drops even below 20%, usually a simple OTA update to close the High Voltage (HV) battery contactor the moment 12V drops below 50% to charge it up to 100% then opening the contactor to HV would be seamless and user will not fear ever ending up with drained 12V battery

2. Rear window doesn’t close all the way down and stops around at 80% of closing which is as per design

3. There is only one reverse white light on right side of the tail light which initially is quite confusing and also saving cost on installation of a single bulb makes people question the quality of decision taken by Tata team

4. The mirror is not placed exactly to the center of the windshield but randomly fixed, this was bit annoying while sticking the Fast tag at the center of the windshield or installing dash cam to the center of the windshield which doesn’t align with the oddly placed mirror

5. Tata ZConnect app can be improved so much better compared to present scenario which is at it’s horrible state, I hope Tata starts looping in it’s TCS team to handle these rather than 3rd party vendors who provide these horrible piece of software full of bugs.

The difference was night & day as my friend was testing the remote features of his MG Comet EV which has zero delay and worked like charm whereas the command given from the Tata ZConnect app takes forever to reflect and the latency is abnormal to make it practical.

Conclusion

Tiago EV is made for driving in City, so while you are driving inside City, Tiago EV would be just more than perfect and would be quite fun to get around.

But as this car is not made for driving on highways, if you still wish to travel on road trips on Tiago EV, then be ready to spend quite a long time on the charging stations and plan well before starting your road trip with grounding rods, long extension wires etc in case you get stranded due to faulty charging station or long power cut.

Also kindly note, I had not written about Regen, Tata accessories, Service, ZConnect app as well as HV Critical Error as the article had already grown significantly and I will write detailed and dedicated articles about each one of them in upcoming weeks.

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