TATA'S MOST CONSIDERED SUV GOES ALL IN ON VOLTS AND VIRTUE

THE TATA HARRIER EV: FIRST EXPERIENCE

- Saneet Dsilva F

If you had suggested back in 2014 that Tata Motors, makers of things earnest and Indian, would one day launch a twin-motor, all-electric, all-wheel-drive Harrier on the main straight of India's only Formula One circuit, I would have nodded politely, assumed, and moved quietly away. But here we are. And that is more or less exactly what happened.

Now, this sort of unveiling tends to make me a bit twitchy. Not because I am anti-progress. I quite like electrons. But electric SUVs usually arrive with the same three boxes ticked. They include piped-in spaceship noises, iridescent blue accents that make everything look like it has been dunked in Listerine, and a touchscreen that is from the movie Interstellar. I feared more of the same. But I was wrong.

What Tata has done with the Harrier EV isn't loud, or faddish, or obsessed with pantomime. It is not particularly futuristic either. So what is it?

The day began with what Tata described as an electric ballet showcase, which in this case meant a fleet of Harrier EVs gliding around the Buddh International Circuit in tight formation. It was hypnotic in its way, but also gently absurd. Still, it illustrated the point. These machines are composed, well-sorted and surprisingly agile for something that weighs 2.3 tonnes. And they don't leak fluids on apexes, which is progress of a very modern kind.

Shortly thereafter, a military-grade eight-wheeled tank was brought onto the track. One does wonder if this was strictly necessary, but again, the Harrier EV was up to the challenge. It pulled the thing forward without fuss. No wheelspin, no roaring, no flexed muscles. Just 313 brake horsepower and 504 Newton-metres of torque doing their job.