MG Motor India on Thursday launched ZS EV, its first electric vehicle (and second car) in the country. At Rs 20.88 lakh starting price, MG Motor’s electric offering is much cheaper than that of its direct competitor, Hyundai Kona.
Kona was launched last year for Rs 25.30 lakh, before Hyundai gave GST reduction benefits to customers and brought down the price to Rs 23.71 lakh. Separately, customers who booked ZS before January 17 will get Rs 1 lakh discount on the aforementioned price.
MG Motor claims that it has secured an overwhelming response for the new-age electric SUV — over 2,800 bookings in 27 days, which it said outpaces the total number of electric cars sold in India in 2019. The company will begin ZS EV deliveries on January 27 across Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad.
"The ZS EV is a globally successful product that operates at the intersection of an EV’s sustainability, an SUV’s practicality, and a sports car’s performance. It comes with best-in-class features and tech capabilities at a compelling price point," said Rajeev Chaba, president and managing director, MG Motor India.
“We are confident that this unprecedented value proposition will incentivise more consumers across India to go electric. We will continue to strengthen the Indian EV landscape as we offer the best of EV technology and act as a catalyst for the country’s nascent EV market by providing a complete, end-to-end ecosystem,” he said.
The ZS EV, according to MG, has already registered significant success in more than 10 global markets including the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia.
While initial response for the newest EV can be termed overwhelming, the road ahead for MG’s new product is full of competition. Home-grown and as well as foreign carmakers are gearing up to launch new EVs for the Indian market, and some of them will have a very competitive price tag.
Tata Motors has recently announced launch of half-a-dozen EVs, some of them priced below Rs 10 lakh. Similarly, M&M plans to launch electric variants of its popular models XUV 300 and KUV100 soon. Coming back to ZS, the EV is equipped with a 44.5 kWh IP6-certified battery pack that gives an output of 141 bhp and 353 Nm of peak torque.
The battery can offer a maximum range of about 340 km on a single charge, and can go from 0-100 kmph in just 8.5 seconds. Its Li-ion battery can be charged up to 80 per cent in 40 minutes with a 50 kW DC charger.
The firm has introduced the MG eShield, which gives privately-registered customers a free-of-charge, five-year manufacturer warranty for unlimited kilometres on the car and eight years/150k km warranty on the battery.