My journey into the world of electric vehicles wasn’t something I had planned.
For almost three years, my Renault Kiger was my go-to car. I put over 63,000 km on it, taking it everywhere, from long highway runs and road trips to countless automotive shoots. It was a car that rarely gave me a reason to complain. In fact, I had become so comfortable with it that replacing it wasn’t really on my mind.
There was, however, one recurring issue. Being a 3-cylinder petrol engine, the Kiger would occasionally struggle with its air-conditioning. Especially during long drives in peak summer, more so when the car was fully loaded. On extended highway journeys with the AC running continuously, it would sometimes trip off. It wasn’t something that happened every day, but considering the amount of travelling I do for work, it eventually became a concern.
My work involves spending a lot of time on the road. Road trips, shoots, launches and highway drives are all part of the job, which meant I started looking for something that could make these journeys more economical without compromising on comfort or practicality. That’s when I started seriously considering an EV.
The MG Windsor was one of the cars that caught my attention. Its spacious cabin, premium interiors, practicality and overall value made a lot of sense to me. I eventually bought one, and within a year, I had already covered nearly 24,000 km. That ownership experience completely changed the way I looked at electric cars.
The low running costs were obviously a big advantage, but what surprised me more was how easy an EV was to live with. The refinement, instant torque and sheer convenience of daily driving made me a firm believer in the technology. More importantly, I realised that an EV didn’t necessarily have to be restricted to city commutes.
So when a KTM 390 Adventure shoot in Goa came up and, coincidentally, MotorBeam received the Mahindra XEV 9E as our long-term test car, I saw an opportunity. I had already experienced what an EV could do in everyday life with my Windsor. Now I wanted to find out what a modern electric SUV could do when you took it much further.
And what better way to find out than by putting a massive 79 kWh battery and a large electric SUV through a multi-state road trip? Our journey started in Mumbai, with the XEV 9E playing the role of our support vehicle for the KTM shoot. With cameras, equipment and everything else we needed for the shoot loaded into the SUV, we pointed south towards Goa.
The first few kilometres were fairly familiar territory, but as the city disappeared behind us and the highways opened up, the XEV 9E began to settle into its role as a long-distance cruiser. We travelled through fast highways, coastal roads, busy cities and eventually the twisty sections that make a road trip through the Western Ghats so enjoyable.
Mahindra claims a range of around 600 km, but for me, the more important number was what the car could actually deliver in the real world. Over the course of the trip, with a mix of highway cruising, city traffic, elevation changes, ghats and the occasional enthusiastic run through the corners, the XEV 9E consistently returned around 450-470 km on a full charge.
For a vehicle of this size, with this level of performance, that was genuinely impressive. The biggest surprise was that range anxiety simply never became part of the trip. Once the KTM shoot in Goa was wrapped up, we could have headed back towards Mumbai. Instead, we decided to keep going south. The next destination was Coorg.
The Goa-to-Coorg leg was one of the most enjoyable parts of the journey. The roads gradually changed as we moved south, and so did the scenery. Highways gave way to more winding roads, the temperature dropped and the landscape became increasingly green.
We made just one charging stop in Mangaluru before heading towards the hills. That single stop was enough to give us the confidence to tackle the climb into Coorg. Without constantly thinking about where the next charger was.
And then the roads started getting interesting. The climb towards Coorg is filled with steep gradients, sweeping corners and tighter hairpins. This is where the XEV 9E started to feel less like a large luxury EV and more like a genuinely capable touring machine.
The suspension does a fantastic job of balancing comfort with control. It absorbs the rougher sections without making the car feel floaty, while the steering and rear-wheel-drive layout make it surprisingly engaging when the road starts twisting. For something this large, it genuinely doesn’t feel like a cumbersome SUV.