Mahindrization of Reva is good for green customer

Mahindra deciding to invest in Reva is a win-win business move and also is very timely. Reva with limited amount of resources can also aim for massive business scaling what it really aimed when it started the business.

REVA stands for Revolutionary Electric Vehicle Alternative. Its founder Chetan Maini has designed this car with a robust but simple technology at a highly optimized cost. Reva's benefits and its few drawbacks can only be felt after using this car for few months. More than environment-friendly technology this vehicle saves money. Every time there is hike in petrol price the user feel better for his smart decision to own this car. But the problem is the rise in the cost of lead-acid batteries used in the car which need to be replaced after 40,000 KM of ride or 3 years whichever is earlier. Batteries in Reva costed around 35,000 Rupees when Reva was launched but now batteries costs close to 1 lakh Rupees. There are also other electronics systems inside the car, which can be redesigned to offer more comfort and safety to the driver. But the core technology inside this car is robust and reliable. Reva has improved few of the discomforts but it awaits some major changes.

For big car manufacturers like Mahindra and Tata it takes different set of engineers with electrical and electronic engineering background to design electric car's engines and also they should work in tandem with mechanical/automotive engineers. There is a need to blend traditional automotive design with electric driven computer controlled engines.
That's where Mahindra will find the partnership highly fruitful.

The biggest drawback of electric car particularly Reva is it can only travel 80 KM in single charge, but now there are technologies to get rid of this drawback. Reva can replace present lead acid with Lithium Ion or NiMH batteries provided there is a significant fall in prices of these batteries close to lead acid batteries, even otherwise Lithium Ion or NiMH batteries can triple the present of 80KM to more than 200 KM in single charge. Few days back a Japanese company has successfully driven its electric car non-stop for 1000 KMs in single charge. This can be achieved by using advanced batteries and smart electronics controls designed with low power consuming semiconductor devices. But the big challenge is ensuring passenger safety because the Lithum and NiMH are prone to catch fire due to defects in the battery as well as charging and discharging system.

So there are technological challenges for the Reva to scale up, where Mahindra partnership comes very handy and also is vice-versa.