Tata Nexon EV vs Mahindra XUV400: Real-world Range Compared

If you were planning to buy an electric SUV under the Rs 20 lakh mark, then the Tata Nexon EV and Mahindra XUV400 are your two best options. They both offer a claimed range of around 460 km, which makes them rather usable, not just for city runabouts but even for intercity travel.

However, we know the story of claimed range figures is similar to the claimed fuel efficiency figures, which are almost never accurate in the real world. For this reason, we charged the Nexon EV and XUV400 to 100% and went about draining them entirely to find out their real-world range. A quick spec check and you can then place your bets!

Specifications

The Nexon EV has the upper hand in terms of on-paper specs, with a slightly bigger battery pack, that translates into a slightly longer range. 

But when it comes to the motor output, the XUV400 with its extra horses and torque clearly wins. But that won’t necessarily help it in this test, as we are about to find out:

Real-world range

To eke out the maximum possible range of both the cars, we drove them in their most efficient setting, with the regenerative braking dialed up all the way to max. The test route included a mixture of different conditions: uphill, downhill, highways, country roads and jammed city conditions. Ofcourse, the air conditioning was kept on to fend off the scorching heat, and both the cars were driven like a normal person would – so no hard acceleration or hypermiling was permitted.

The result? Very close, but not exactly what you might’ve expected after reading the on-paper specs.

The XUV400 managed to clock 289.5km with 1% charge still remaining. On the other hand, we drained the Nexon EV entirely, with the readout displaying a drop dead zero percent charge, and it managed to do 284.2km. 

In defence of the Nexon EV, its test was conducted on a rather boiling hot day where temperatures were soaring up to around 41-degrees in Pune. Under cooler conditions, the Nexon EV is bound to perform better. And so it did, as we found out for ourselves in another test.

Also Read: Tata Nexon EV vs Mahindra XUV400: Ultimate EV Real World Performance Comparison

In a bid to find out how much does the load inside an EV affect its real-world range, we drained the Nexon EV once more. This time around, the sun was a little kinder, not just for us, but for the Nexon EV’s range as well, as the car with no load managed to do 299km! The only varying difference between the two tests, other than the temperature, was the brake energy regen setting, which was changed on the basis of traffic – L1 and L2 on smooth roads, and L3 in peak city traffic. So depending on the weather conditions, the Nexon EV can and should do anywhere between 284.2km to 299km with a single person onboard.

Price

The similarities between their specs and real-world range extend to their price tags. While the Nexon EV retails between Rs 14.49 lakh and Rs 19.49 lakh, the XUV400 is sold from Rs 15.48 lakh to Rs 19.39 lakh (ex-showroom). They only have each other as direct rivals.