Kona Electric: India gets its first full-fledged EV SUV

Automaker Hyundai on Tuesday launched India’s full-fledged electric sports utility vehicle (SUV), branded as Kona Electric.

This is the first electric four-wheeler launched by a major carmaker in India. The new electric car, which flaunts a youthful design, is equipped with a range of 452 km per charge. The car, which is equipped with 39.2 kWh iOn battery, accelerated to 100 km per hour within mere 9.7 seconds. The company also claimed that the car can achieve 80% charge within 57 minutes of charging using a DC charger. The car comes with a warranty for three year and unlimited kilometres, while the battery warranty is in place for 8 years after purchase and 1.6 lakh kilometres.

The car offers four different driving modes – Eco, Eco+, Comfort and Sports – based on torque distribution.

On the exterior, the car has R17 alloy wheels, bi-function LED headlamps and rear skid plate, while coming loaded with digital instrument cluster in the interior. The car also has 17.77 cm touchscreen display audio with Radio, USB and AUX for entertainment purposes.

The Kona Electric powertrain employs 136ps permanent-magnet synchronous electric motor powered by a 39.2 kWh advanced lithium-ion polymer battery. The motor develops 40.27 kgm of torque distributed to the front wheels. The battery system has liquid-cooling technology and battery pack has high energy density.

The car is priced at Rs 25.30 lakh (ex-showroom) – a modest price when you compare it to the prices in India’s EV segment. The company is launching the car in 11 cities with 15 dealers, including Bengaluru. The bookings, which start today, will be made online.

“India is ushering into a new era with Clean and Connected Mobility. We are committed to the Government’s vision of ‘Shared’, ‘Connected’ and ‘Clean’ Mobility. Hyundai is leading the future mobility solutions globally and will bring in the most relevant technology in the clean mobility space in the Indian market. As we embark on the journey of India’s future mobility, the launch of India’s First Fully Electric SUV KONA in India will be a revolutionary and a definitive forward move to change the perspective towards electric cars altogether,” S.S. Kim, MD and CEO, Hyundai Motor India Limited said at the launch.

Globally, till now, Hyundai has sold over 3 lakh green cars, which include both hybrid vehicles and electric cars. Last year, the world witnessed 1 million green car sales, and the market will go up to 7.52 million annual sales by 2025, as per reports.

Prior to this, Mahindra has bought the Reva electric car – which is of far smaller size that Kona. The move also comes at a time, when the government is trying to give a push to India’s electric vehicle market. In a yet another policy push to the electric vehicle market in India, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her budget speech last week, announced tax rebates of up to ₹1.5 lakh on interest paid on loans to buy EVs

India, though, like China or countries in the EU, has not set a target for automakers to convert a certain part of their total vehicle production to electric or other electrified offerings