World Environment Day: We Drain 3 EVs And Strong Hybrid Cars To See How Far They Can Take You With Reduced Emissions

Today is World Environment Day. A day where we pledge to reduce our carbon footprint and emissions to make this place a greener day. And in a traffic-laden country like India, there’s no doubt that air quality has taken a hit with the insane amount of emissions. However, technology is progressing and there are more electric cars and strong hybrids in the market to ensure motoring with reduced emissions. 

So in this report, we bring you six Drive To Death videos with EVs and strong hybrids, to see how many kilometres these cars can run before they run out, giving you a fair idea of how they perform while taking them for road trips. 

Electric Cars

Hyundai Ioniq 5  

The Ioniq 5 comes in its long range rear-wheel drive guise, packing in a 217PS rear-drive e-motor paired to a 72.1kWh battery pack. It promises a claimed range of 631km on a single charge. But in our real-world test in and around Pune over a route that covered hills, city traffic and highways, we managed to extract out nearly 432km. That’s enough to do the Pune-Mumbai sprint, twice! 

Tata Nexon EV Max 

The long-range version of the Tata Nexon EV packs more horses as well as a larger battery pack. And with a recent software update, the EV’s claimed range improved to 453km. But during our drive to death test, Tata’s popular electric SUV managed to do a commendable 293km. 

Mahindra XUV400 

We also put the Tata Nexon EV’s immediate rival, the Mahindra XUV400 long range, in our Drive To Death test. At 39.4kWh, its battery pack is a bit smaller than the Tata’s 40.3kWh unit. That said, it gets more power and a slightly better 456km claimed range. But how does it perform in the real world? Check out this video:

Strong Hybrid Cars

Maruti Suzuki Grand Vitara: Hybrid vs Petrol

In this unique test, we had a very simple agenda. We drove from Udaipur to Pune in both the hybrid and mild-hybrid powered Grand Vitaras to see how far they can go on a single tank of fuel. And obviously, the winner here was the strong hybrid. To see by how much it beat the standard petrol model, check out this video:

Toyota Innova Hycross: Hybrid vs Petrol 

This was also another fun road trip, driving down from Bangalore to Goa, and then Pune, on a variety of road conditions to see how much extra the hybrid can do over the naturally aspirated petrol model. But in this test, we have a surprise model tagging along. To see how close this competition was, check out this video:

Honda City: Hybrid vs Diesel vs Petrol 

In this test, the City hybrid lost the test to the diesel model by just a smidge. However, with the diesel model discontinued, if you compare it with the petrol model, it still wins by a fair margin. Now, we haven’t had a chance to ‘drive to death’ the City petrol yet. But with a claimed mileage of 18.4kmpl for the petrol-CVT and a 40-litre fuel tank, it could theoretically cover 736km. That simply can’t beat the hybrid’s real-world efficiency, which you can watch here:

So these are the 5 tests we have primarily done with electric cars and strong hybrids. And there’s more on the way. Until then, stay responsible and keep our mother earth a green and clean place to live.