General Motors India pulled the wraps off the Chevrolet Beat EV, as a part of GM’s celebrations on the occasion of the world environment month. General Motors India has no plans of putting the Chevrolet Beat EV into production any time too soon and the showcase of this EV is to showcase GM’s capability of building clean and green electric vehicles.
Incidentally. this is the second time that GM India is showcasing an EV in India, after the still born Chevrolet Spark Electric, which failed to hit production due to Reva Electric being acquired by GM’s competitor Mahindra. While we were expecting series hybrid technology on the Beat Electric derived from the Chevrolet Volt Hybrid, GM has chosen to go with the full electric model powered by lithium ion batteries.
The only similarity between the Volt Hybrid and the Beat Electric is the 300 cell lithium-ion battery which while weighing 270kg puts out almost 20 kWh of peak power. The battery stack can be recharged in about 8 hours and will juice up the 60 Bhp electric motor of the Beat Electric, endowing the car with a range of close to 130 kilometers on a single charge.
Quite frankly, we are a little disappointed as the Chevrolet Beat Ev doesn’t really bring anything new into the equation apart from it’s battery stack which can operate in a wide range of temperature from -20 to +45 degrees celsius. So, India’s wait for a practical electric car continues and it looks like a series hybrid would be a better option than an all electric car. That said, Tata Motors has been working on an EV based on the Tata Indica and that is one car that could spark off the Electric Vehicle revolution in India if it ever sees the light of the day.
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