I went to the dealership today and checked the CBU display unit of Volt EV.
Price and booking amount
For now, they have written 35 lacs for CKD in the price list, which the sales person said is not final yet. The price of the vehicle is not finalized yet by the company. It could be anywhere between 30 and 35 lacs after the final launch. Right now, you can book it for 15 lacs. The CKD deliveries will start from June.
The company have imported 50 CBU units which you can buy with immediate delivery for 42 lacs.
Space
It's a proper 4 seater car with space in the trunk, unlike the Gigi EV. You can store good amount of grocery in the trunk. The front and rear passenger space is surprisingly excellent when compared to Alto. I may not be wrong in saying it's slightly more spacious than Alto.
Interior
The complete interior is made from hard plastic like Suzuki vehicles. Nothing special, here. Though the color combination is pretty good. The seat covers are leather made. The seat cushion is ok. Not too hard, not too soft.
Powertrain & Battery
It has LiFePO (Lithium Iron Phosphate) battery which is surprising for me since this is not obsolete tech. Tesla also uses it in some of their models. This is good since these batteries have good life. Battery capacity is 16.5 kWh.
Electric motor produces 34 kW (45 hp) power and 102 Nm of torque. As a comparison, here are the Alto engine specs:
29 kW (39 hp) power @ 6500 rpm and 56 Nm of torque @ 4000 rpm. Volt EV will be a rocket when compared to Alto in terms of power figures. Not only Alto's power/torque is less, but to achieve those power figures with ICE, you have to rev them to particular rpms. With electric, you get instant torque as soon as you touch the pedal.
Speed & Range
Top speed in Eco mode is 50~60 kph. In sports mode, it's 100 kph.
The company's claim of range is 200 km with full charge, which takes about 6 hours on slow home charger.
With Eco mode, you may get 180 km of real world range. Sports mode may reduce it to 140~160 km. Again it all depends on how fast you are going, are you using AC or heater. These are the 3 things that are EV range killer. Higher speeds, AC, and heater. On the positive side, EV range don't get affected by idling in bumper to bumper traffic.
Electric motor and battery warranty is 5 years or 120,000 km, which is good. For rest of the parts, 3 years or 60,000 km. Honestly, it doesn't have many parts other than AC compressor, ABS unit.
Braking
It has ABS brakes with regen feature to improve range.
Suspension
From the specs of rear suspension, it looks like it will have better suspension than Alto. Front one is same as Alto.
Air condition
It has manual AC system like Alto. My guess is its AC will not be chiller cool. It's there only to make you feel comfortable. That's it.
Features present in Volt EV but not in Alto
- Alloy rims
- TPMS
- Rear parking camera
- Parking sensors
- Manually adjusted driver seat
Features present in Alto but not in Volt EV
- Airbags
- Retractable mirrors
- Auto adjusting mirrors
Introductory Brochure
Here's the basic introductory brochure with specs.
volt-ev-brochure.pdf (4.0 MB)