Mahindra XUV.e8 (XUV700 electric): Initial driving impressions and walk-around | OVERDRIVE

Hello and welcome to Overdrive, this is the vehicle that you all have been asking us about. So this is the XUV-E8, it's a prototype, concept, whatever you want to call it, they haven't shared any official images of it or any official video footage of it and the reason for that is this particular prototype is not exactly on the Englobe platform, they have sort of put things together to, you know, sort of give us an idea of what the performance would be like when you drive this car. So anyway, I'm going to walk you through what this vehicle is all about, essentially this is an electrified XUV-700, look at it from that perspective and things will quickly fall into place. For example, if you look at the silhouette, if you look at the lines, they are all XUV-700 and if you look at the lights, that's something that we saw on the XUV-E9 concept, the E8 follows a similar phase, so essentially what you get is this big LED signature that goes from one pillar to the other, one end to the other and like I said in my E9 walkaround as well, this actually does turn into a turn blinker but it's only the top section. So like I said, they've just sort of put together a few things over the XUV and, you know, put this prototype together for this particular event. Of course, all of these rough edges will be cleared out, cleaned out before the launch and when is the launch? December 2024, they have set the timeline, this vehicle will be launched by December 2024, so essentially you saw the front end phase, you see these lines here, something similar to the detailing we saw on the E9 video, if you haven't watched that video, go watch that video, you will get an idea of what I'm talking about. Even lower down in the bumper, you will see the vertical detailing that seems to be a signature for these new electric vehicles from Mahindra. You will see the golden Twin Peaks logo or bronze or copper Twin Peaks logo, call me colour blind, I don't know, but yeah, this is, that logo is on the hub, this is an aerodynamic wheel and the tyres are a 245-45 R20, again, very similar to what we saw on the E9. But this is, you know, exactly what the production vehicle will sort of look like, so you will have the same lines, you'll have that same rising haunches or rising beltline or those pronounced haunches as the XUV700, you will have those pop-out door handles as well, like the 700, you'll have the 360-degree around-view camera, you'll have the wing mirror mounted turn blinkers, all of that will be as it is and even at the rear, you'll see the XUV700 kind of, you know, taillights continued here, it's not what we saw on the E9, it's not that kind of a signature, this is the same tail end as the XUV700, so to speak. But the cabin is different, let me quickly get into the cabin and show you what's changed there, so no convenient seating or whatever they call it, I'm sorry, I forgot the term for it, but where the seat goes back on its own, that is gone, that's not here right now, not on this prototype, but what you do see is three screens, right, so let's start the car, that's the push-button starter, it's already on, but the screen doesn't seem to be on for some reason, but yeah, essentially what you get is a speedometer in here, it'll also tell you what gear you've selected, the range, the battery, all of that it'll give you, it'll give you the multi-pane layout that we saw on the XUV700 and then there'll be a third infotainment screen and that's for the passenger. So three screens, three 12.3-inch screens that you get here, otherwise everything else looks like what we've seen in the XUV700, again, that ambient lighting and the gear selector, etc, etc, anyway, so that's that, so like I said, this is sort of a mixture of components here, just to give us an idea of what it drives like, but when it goes into production, what it's essentially going to have is the Inglow platform, the Indian global electric platform that they have, that's co-developed in a way with Volkswagen or developed with the Volkswagen MEB toolkit, what it's going to have is between a 60-80 kWh battery pack, I think this will come with a 60 kWh battery pack and that's going to give you a range of about, I'm guessing 375-400 km on a full charge on a WLTP cycle, it's also going to be compatible with 175 kWh fast charging and that's that right now, I think they will do only rear-wheel drive versions of this car, AWD may not be done, but I'm not sure, we'll know more on that, I mean, AWD is possible on this platform of course, but we'll know more about it closer to launch, but I think this is going to be the vehicle with which they go to market, you know, and give you an affordable three-row vehicle, so this is the three-row version again, just like the XUV, so they're going to make that affordable three-row EV with this and it might just be only rear-wheel drive, but like I said, AWD is also possible, but that's a much powerful powertrain and I'm not sure if they would put that on this, so we are going to have a go at the XUV-E8, it's a prototype and there, comes to life rather silently, the only thing making sounds is, are the vents, no chime, nothing to tell you that it is switched on, but anyway, so gets off the mark very silently, just the way you expect electric vehicle to be, the acceleration feels pretty good, the handling manners, again, it doesn't feel too heavy, they're hinting it would be around 2.5-2.6 tonnes when the Inglot platform is properly integrated with this car, but yeah, it doesn't feel too heavy, I mean, it's feeling nice and agile, in fact, it's feeling almost like the regular XUV 700, almost feels like it's a regular petrol or diesel vehicle and they've just sort of muted the powertrain, that's how natural it feels, so I quite like how the vehicle is driving, doesn't feel too lethargic, it's not just about the instantaneous torque, but you know, even the way it's delivering power when you're sort of doing a roll-on mid-range kind of a thing, it's working quite well, so yeah, pretty impressed, of course, the final version is what will make sense and that is when we'll have a better idea of what this vehicle feels like, but yeah, and no regenerative braking, it's just got the regular brakes and they feel perfectly natural, don't feel too wooden or anything, so yeah, very natural feeling overall package, that's how I will put it.