Tata Nexon EV: What's the right price?

Tata’s new Nexon EV promises to be the perfect combination of practicality, usability and planet friendliness for We, The People. However, its Rs 15 lakh - Rs 17 lakh expected price tag might not sound right -- after all you could buy a Harrier for that kind of money! But you’ll need to dig a bit deeper to make sense of the package that is the Nexon EV, so let’s do exactly that today.

First, let’s put things in perspective by bringing in the Tigor EV. The electric sedan is priced at Rs 13 lakh for its 213km range variant. The Nexon EV uses the more sophisticated ZIPTRON architecture. Behind the fancy name is a high-voltage, high-performance architecture that uses liquid cooling for the batteries and motor to ensure higher and more consistent performance. The superiority of the hardware allows Tata to offer an 8-year/160,000km warranty compared to the 3-year/125,000km warranty on the Tigor.

Coming back to the ICE siblings, the Nexon EV is expected to be Rs 4.5 lakh - Rs 5.5 Lakh more expensive than its petrol and diesel counterparts. These prices are ex-showroom but the gap between them in on-road terms will be narrower. However, the competitiveness of the Nexon Ev will finally be dependent on subsidies and rebates that are offered by state governments. For instance government subsidy in Maharashtra would drop the price tag by Rs 1 Lakh and allow for rebates of Rs 80-90,000 over a four year period. Some states are also waiving road tax and registration charges which will narrow the price gap significantly.

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Interestingly Shailesh Chandra, President, Tata Electric Mobility, has said that Tata is evaluating lease and subscription plans to help people get a taste of the Nexon EV. Such plans would also make the Nexon EV a bit easier on the wallet. Finally, we will have to wait for the launch of the Nexon EV to see just where it fits into the Nexon family. If the net price allows it to slot in alongside its petrol and diesel powered siblings, the Nexon EV would have hit the bulls-eye.

Read our first drive review of the Nexon EV here