Hyundai Creta Electric long term review, 2,500km report

The Creta simply celebrated its tenth birthday and is an SUV that's virtually outlined Hyundai India as we all know the model at the moment. At this milestone, as we appeared again on Autocar India's decade-long relationship with the ever present midsize SUV, we realised the long-term fleet has been house to each single era and facelift of it. And this latest entrant to the fleet represents the newest and largest leap for an SUV that's continuously evolving. Is it any shock that Hyundai's first mass-market EV for India took the form and identify of the Creta? It looks as if a successful system, however the gross sales charts inform a unique story. After operating it for a month, nevertheless, I can't work out why folks aren't falling over one another to purchase one. It’s sensible!

Attention-grabbing two-tone alloy wheel design with ridges on spokes is difficult to maintain clear.

There's the argument that it doesn't look or really feel wild sufficient, and to every their very own, however that's exactly what I like about it. Personally, I'm previous the novelty part of EVs, the place they needed to wow you with their appears to be like and harm your eyeballs with their acceleration. I've come to understand that an EV's final software is the every day grind, and for that, it must be snug, refined, sensible, soothing and filled with options. You recognize, like a Creta.

3-pin plug level beneath the rear seat allows you to cost bigger units like laptops.

I liked the spell in our Creta 1.5 petrol CVT lengthy termer, and albeit, getting into this felt nearly no totally different. Tall seating place, comfortable seat, nice view out over the unexpectedly low twin screens and a clear if considerably plasticky dashboard. It's obtained the identical huge gear record too, together with my favorite characteristic – the sensible 8-speaker Bose sound system. One massive change – the centre console is now cut up, with a floating bit between the seats and a big space for storing freed up within the dashboard. It might not seem to be a lot, but it surely exhibits Hyundai was not less than attempting to go on a few of the area effectivity advantages of an EV to the client.

The steering wheel is new, borrowed from the latest-gen Kona Electrical, and as a long-time Hyundai consumer, I'm nonetheless not used to the steering controls having been swapped between the left and proper spokes. What I obtained used to surprisingly rapidly was the twist-operated drive state selector behind that steering wheel, though I’ll admit I could have gone into R as an alternative of D a couple of occasions initially.

Little compromise in addition area on the electrical model.

One other nice shock is how little it provides away when it comes to boot area. Not one thing I often should put to the take a look at, an emergency requirement for some plastic chairs meant I needed to play a hurried recreation of Tetris within the baggage compartment. The parcel tray got here off, chairs went in, and a little bit of push and pull later, I managed to pack it almost to the roof with stuff. In all probability couldn't try this in some newfangled, low-slung coupé-EV.

Unreal stage of effectivity that averages at 7.5km/kWh and tops out near 10!

I'll inform you extra about the way it drives in a future report, however I’ll depart you with one final element that left me gobsmacked, and that's the effectivity. The Ioniq 5 at all times wowed us by delivering upwards of 6.5km/kWh commonly, but it surely was an enormous, heavy automobile. The smaller Creta averages 7.5-7.8km/kWh, and if there's much less visitors, it could possibly nudge 10! That's an insane determine for a low-slung aero-efficient sports activities automobile, not to mention a boxy SUV primarily based on an ICE mannequin.

Battery protected and excessive sufficient, however simply seen and untidily executed.

So that you see, beneath that typical and recognisable physique shell lies the perfect of Hyundai's tech and engineering. If that's the one barrier to buying this EV, I’d encourage extra folks to provide it one other go. I’m nonetheless studying extra about it as we go alongside, however for now, color me impressed.