Green(er) in Blue

Hot on the heels of the launch of the new Creta Electric, we take the electrified version of India's best-selling mid-size SUVs for a drive to find out if the successful formula continues in the EV form -

- Yogendra Pratap

Hyundai Motor India Limited (HMIL) announced its electrification roadmap way back in late 2021 with a plan to launch six BEVs by 2028. These would be catering to different segments including the mass market as well as the premium mass market segments and have various body styles including SUV, CUV and sedan. While some of these were to be based on E-GMP (the Electric Global Modular Platform), others would be localised to make them cost-competitive and were to be made specifically for India. HMIL announced it was already working on one such vehicle.

At that time Hyundai had launched just the Kona EV in India but had been making EVs for a long while before that. At various points over the last decade, I had driven various Hyundai electric cars with the first of those being the Ioniq 5, way back in 2017.

That was a 350km journey from the city of Palanga on the coast of the Baltic Sea to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania. I stopped once to recharge on the way at a supermarket complex that was offering free charging and paid only for the coffee. Ever since I have driven many electric cars from Hyundai with the first-gen Kona EV being with me for nearly a year.

During this period I also took another Kona EV for a nearly 10,000km drive from the northernmost point of Europe to the southernmost - Nordkapp to Tarifa. The Ioniq 5 was my daily commute for about 10 months, besides which I have also driven the Ioniq 6, the second-gen Kona EV as well as the Inster Electric.