A couple of months ago, I was driving the new BMW i7. A luxurious combination of metal, leather and plastic, it had a unique feature — a massive drop-down widescreen panel that was almost the entire width of the vehicle for rear-seat passengers. The screen connects to multiple streaming services, and thanks to ubiquitous 5G data across much of India, you can watch any movie you want on it, anytime. If the vehicle had to be a mobile command post for a world leader or corporate honcho, it could potentially be repurposed as a video-conferencing screen.
The BMW i7 is a luxury behemoth, which can redefine the concept of ‘date night’ completely. But there’s another car that matches up to the BMW i7 in this aspect — and it won’t cost you Rs 2 crore.
By now, you might have read the reviews of the ‘refreshed’ Tata Nexon EV, India’s best-selling electric passenger car, with over 50,000 units sold. It has been given a thorough cosmetic makeover and incorporates features like light bars in the front and back. I do like the fact that they’ve been made functional, in the sense that the front light bar can give you an idea of the charging state of the vehicle.
I may not be a fan of the Barney the dinosaur-inspired purple exterior and interior colour scheme on some variants of the Nexon, but I was very impressed with the vehicle with respect to its drivability. Tata.ev, as the electric vehicle arm of the carmaker is now called, has made some important improvements to the vehicle.
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Nexon EV’s huge win
What was really impressive was the new infotainment system because when you’re stuck in a traffic jam, entertainment quality genuinely makes a difference. And on this front, Tata.ev has definitely upped the game in this price segment — the Nexon EV is ahead even of its petrol-powered sibling.
The centrepiece of this system is the rather large 26-cm display and an all-new operating system and interface. Now, like in many other vehicles, this system connects wirelessly to Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. But unlike any other vehicle in India, the Nexon EV allows a third-party navigation system, Apple Maps if you are using CarPlay, (Google Maps on Android Auto) to be displayed on the fully digital instrument cluster.
This is a huge win, as having the navigation facility right in front of you rather than having to look to the side is far more convenient as a driver. Maybe a future vehicle from Tata.ev could take this a step further and incorporate navigation into a heads-up display, but that could be asking for too much. Anyway, the JBL-Harman sound system on the car — I was driving the top-specified ‘Empowered’ variant that has all these toys — has multiple sound modes, including one where the sound can be adjusted if the kids are sleeping at the back.
But then there was the ‘Arcade.ev’ menu, which transforms the concept of the ‘drive-in movie theatre’ into the ‘drive anywhere’ movie theatre.
Just like on the screen in the much, much more expensive BMW i7, on the Nexon EV one, you can install any streaming service and some video games. Suppose you take the vehicle to somewhere like Pawna Lake outside Pune — you could stop by the shore of the reservoir on a camping trip and watch a movie under the stars with proper cinematic sound. I watched the trailer of Top Gun: Maverick (2022) inside the Nexon EV and believe me, you almost feel that Super Hornet’s exhaust.
Just to clarify, the screen will play video entertainment only if the car is stationary. That said, it is rather cool that you don’t have to miss an important cricket or football match if you’re out camping in the middle of nowhere. As long as you have data connectivity, you’re good.
And this is on a car, and not an expensive one at that. Priced at Rs 19.94 lakh ex-showroom, the Empowered+ variant of the Nexon EV is a decent buy as long as frequent long-distance highway hauls aren’t your thing. With such features, the Nexon EV will definitely stay on top of the Indian passenger EV market for the time being. But it isn’t just the Nexon EV — the shift toward in-car entertainment becoming a vital aspect of the car selection process is evident in other models as well.
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A major step forward
The fact that Hyundai and Kia install BOSE audio on their top-specified variants has long been a driver of sales for those models. And because those variants enjoy juicier margins, consumers and carmakers are equally happy. Today’s first-time car owners will not know the struggle of pulling out stuck audio cassette tape rolls using pencils or even how to expertly splice it together, thanks to streaming systems. But these latest advances are a step further, and frankly, I’m impressed.
As a jury member, when I evaluate cars for awards like the Indian Car Of The Year (ICOTY), I consider affordability and drivability. But increasingly, the quality of the car’s infotainment system, particularly aspects like the user interface and user experience (UI/UX), is becoming a very critical aspect of vehicle evaluation. And on that front, I think Tata.ev has taken a major step forward. Sure, there can be minor improvements, but I’m waiting to see what the company does in its upcoming vehicles and how the competition pans out as well.
@kushanmitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. Views are personal.
(Edited by Humra Laeeq)