It is fascinating how vehicle body styles change according to the market. Over the past two decades, the rise of the SUVs has remained unchallenged. In India today, especially with entry-level vehicles such as the Tata Punch and Hyundai Exter, the SUV body style accounts for three out of every five vehicles sold in the country.
But there is a subtle change happening: the rise in popularity of six- and seven-seater vehicles.You might call them multi-purpose vehicles (MPVs), multi-utility vehicles (MUVs) or even three-row SUVs. This is evident in the enduring appeal of the Toyota Innova, which is growing even more popular now. Buyers of the Kia Carnival and Toyota Vellfire swear by MPVs, with some having ditched luxury brands for the convenience of a more spacious vehicle. But it is the Maruti Suzuki Ertiga — whose 16,140 units were sold in just May this year — which is always in the top five highest-selling vehicles in the country. The Ertiga has become a staple of the commercial taxi business, while also enjoying strong popularity among families.
Then there is the Kia Carens, especially its new Carens Clavis avatar. The Carens is the Korean carmaker’s most popular model by far, a hit with young suburban families. But why do I feel the MPV/MUV segment is going to be the fastest-growing in the coming years?
Best of both worlds
Over the past decade, the Indian car market has grown from under two million units to over four million units sold annually. This growth has been largely driven by young first-time vehicle owners. Now as that set of buyers grows older and expands their families, they need a vehicle with more space — for carpooling on the school run or when grandparents come to stay or for a road trip when you require extra space for luggage. Fold the third row of seats flat, and you have enough space to carry even the proverbial kitchen sink. And when you are travelling with six people, most MPVs have load-bearing roof rails to carry luggage.
And with many of the MPVs available in India also featuring good ground clearance — the Carens Clavis has a ground clearance of 195 mm, which is more than what is seen in some SUVs — it almost seems as if the MPV and SUV are merging into one. And there is no better example of that than the Hyundai Alcazar that I have had over the past few months. On multiple occasions, I’ve needed to use both the extra seating and the additional luggage space. Sure, the 1.5-litre turbocharged petrol engine that the Alcazar shares with its smaller sibling Creta runs thirstier on the heavier and longer car. But then again, the extra space means there is no need to hire a taxi when you have extra luggage. A little less fuel efficiency is a small price to pay for the bigger space in my opinion, and the 9-10 kmpl efficiency I get is good enough.
But an electric MPV would be the best of both worlds, right? I recently drove the newly introduced battery electric variant of the Kia Carens Clavis, and I think it might be the EV many families have been waiting for. Everything is virtually the same as the internal combustion engine variants. Although the electric version is heavier, thanks to the weight of the battery, something it makes up for with some extra power — 170 PS compared to the 160 PS on the turbocharged petrol motor.
The innards of this electric Kia are identical to that of the Hyundai Creta electric, including the sizes of the battery pack, the motors, and even the range — the Kia being slightly lighter has a marginally better claimed range of 490 kms with its 51.4 kilowatt-hour battery. A smaller battery pack of 42 kilowatt-hours with a 135PS motor is also available. The Kia comes with vehicle-to-load (V2L), a feature which allows you to use the battery pack to power external appliances with a 220V three-point plug, although it is a bit too much because important devices like laptops can be easily charged using a USB-C point.
The car has ventilated and powered seats in the front, and believe me, in the current sauna-like conditions across the country, they are a boon. The lack of wireless Apple CarPlay and Android Auto is a miss, but not an egregious one. The Clavis also features a full Level – 2 suite of Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS), including warnings for traffic coming from the rear blind spot, which is really useful in rainy conditions when the outside mirrors are effectively useless.
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Owning an MPV
After driving both Creta electric and the Carens Clavis EV, it is quite clear that they serve different consumer segments. The Creta electric is more for self-driving, or for someone who likes being driven around by a driver. On the other hand, the Carens Clavis EV is more family-oriented. If you have children, you’d know just how much you have to run around — from sports classes to playdates and birthday parties. You can easily hit 80-100 kms a day and the economics of an electric car that costs just over a rupee a kilometer to run as well as the altruistic reasons for buying one are unmatched.
The Carens Clavis EV extended range HTX+ has an ex-showroom price of Rs 24.5 lakh, exactly three lakh more than the top turbocharged petrol model. But with electric vehicles not paying road tax and registration charges in many states, including Delhi, the on-road price difference comes to less than two lakh.
The economic benefits of owning an EV is another reason why I think the Kia Carens Clavis electric will be a hit. In the NCR taxi market, for example, diesel taxis are effectively banned, and as a result most taxis, including MPVs, have a huge CNG tank taking up luggage space. Additionally, CNG has to be topped up twice or thrice a day, and you don’t need me to tell you about the long queues outside most CNG vending pumps. Today, there are more charging stations across India, and most fleet operators of EVs actually strike deals with charging station operators at lower rates than private car owners.
The limited success of the BYD eMax with operators such as Shoffr has been a case in point, but the operations of China’s largest carmaker in India have been hobbled by geopolitics. In fact, Kia India officials told me that they were seriously considering a ‘mobility’ variant of the vehicle that might be cheaper than the entry-level Carens Clavis electric which is priced at Rs 18 lakh. With the heavy daily usage of most taxis, the price difference between an electric and CNG vehicle could be recovered quickly, especially since electric vehicles are increasingly being exempt from tolls on certain highways such as in Maharashtra.
It’s not just India where the MPVs are witnessing growing popularity. In China too, the world’s biggest car market, sales of MPVs are going up quite fast. Vehicles like the MG M9 that I drove a few weeks ago are also becoming popular. The additional space and comfort of an MPV is being recognised by consumers. Electric MPVs make a lot of sense and we might just be seeing a lot of them on the roads in the coming years.
Kushan Mitra is an automotive journalist based in New Delhi. He tweets @kushanmitra. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)