Whrring #1 - Mahindra XUV4OO
Mahindra is losing faith of early EV adopters, yet again
Mahindra XUV400, sorry XUV4OO, owners aren’t happy.
Mahindra XUV4OO was launched almost a year ago in Sept 2022. Mahindra started delivering the car by late March 2023. Till Jan 2023, multiple news media outlets mentioned that the car will have 60+ connected features and cruise control. Don’t trust me blindly, read it yourself!
You can guess where this is going. The cars delivered to the owners didn’t have these features. Md Bilal, a Mahindra XUV4OO owner, during pre delivery inspection (PDI) was assured of these features by the sales representatives at a Hyderabad dealership. The sales team claimed that these features were in final stages of testing and will be rolled out in the next couple of months. Another owner, Mr. Arvind, wasn’t promised any such features or upgrades. Mr Sumit, in a YouTube video with Yash9w also mentioned that he was promised these features when taking the delivery of the car.
The new features were launched, but in an upgraded model. The total list of features that were added to the ‘upgraded model’ were - Auto Inside Rear View Mirror (IRVM), Boot Lamp, Tweeters, Tyre Pressure monitoring system (TPMS), Hill Hold Assist, Fog lamps, Cruise Control and electronic stability program (ESP).
The older model of XUV4OO, within 5 months of delivery, is sold at a discount of INR 1.25L at the dealerships. The newer model of XUV4OO is offered at a marginally higher rate than the original price of the old XUV4OO.
Side note - As per TeslaClubIndia, sourced from Vahan, Mahindra has sold approximately 1900 cars, not including the data from Telangana state, since March 2023.
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The owners in the Telegram community have verified that there are provisions for most of the above features in their older XUV4OO cars. They haven’t been provided to them as an upgrade. Some of these features can be unlocked via a software update. There are cutouts available in the body of the car for the hardware like fog lamps and tweeters. The dealerships are offering fog lamps as extra paid accessories for existing owners.
Never believe what is shown at product launches. Real products may differ wildly from what is presented in media and presentations. If a sales executive tells you that some features may be provided as a free upgrade whenever ready, don’t believe them, even if they give it in writing. Just ask any Tesla owner who was promised Full Self Driving years ago.
Owners in the community have reached out to their respective dealership and the management. They report that management at Mahindra has given strict instructions to not allow any possibility of retrofitting or unlocking of these features by over the air software upgrades.
We’ve seen a similar story play out before, with one major difference. Tata Motors launched their Nexon EV in early 2020. When they launched their updated Nexon EV Prime in 2022, they provided features like cruise control as free upgrades to their existing early adopters. They hadn’t promised features like cruise control to their early adopters when launching the first version of the car.
This is not the first time Mahindra has left early EV adopters in lurch. Mahindra has consistently ignored Reva and E2O customers in the past. Ex Reva engineers started servicing existing E2O and Reva cars in the market because Mahindra wouldn’t have spare parts. Read the report by PlugInIndia here.
The Indian Parliament approved a new law that mandates fines on companies not meeting their Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) norms, effective from April 2023. The fines can be INR 25,000 per car sold. What are CAFE norms? Car makers have to meet certain CO2 emission targets across their entire portfolio of cars being sold, thereby forcing them to lower their CO2 emissions. Read more here by AutoCar for a good primer. This is probably why you will start seeing more ICE OEMs coming out with more Battery EVs, Hybrids and *cough cough* Hydrogen cars.
What are the next steps?
I assume that the auto media journalists who flew to South Africa for Mahindra’s Thar EV launch know of this issue. They must have questioned the Mahindra management about this. If not, they can surely start now :)
Also, recalls aren’t unheard of in the auto industry. But hey, that’s just me saying things!
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Motoring media and ask cogent questions? You got to be kidding. Gift kidhar hai is the big question!