India’s first Tata Nano EV is here [Video]

The Tata Nano might have ended up as an unaccomplished dream for Tata Motors, but there is no denying that the car had a great potential to be a good seller if it was marketed differently. In this recent times, when the popularity and requirement of compact electric cars are increasing like never before, the Tata Nano Electric is an idea which could have worked well if Tata Motors had conceptualized it in the current times.

While the Nano Electric is now a distant dream-come-true-moment to come out from Tata Motors, the possibility of Tata Nano with aftermarket electric vehicle conversion kits cannot be discarded. An India-based startup called ‘Zikoo’ has come up with the idea of converting the Tata Nano into an electric vehicle, which shows how the idea of a small-sized car like Nano electric can be great for urban mobility.

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The details of this customized Tata Nano Electric from Zikoo are revealed in a YouTube video by ‘DDS’. The two co-founders of Zikoo, Bhanu Pratap Singh and Yugant Solanki took a post-facelift version of Tata Nano Twist and replaced its petrol-powered engine with an electric powertrain.

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This version of Nano Electric is powered by a 3 kW electric motor, which has replaced the rear-mounted petrol engine of the Nano. This project car had a 5-speed AMT gearbox, which is now replaced with a 5-speed clutch-less manual transmission, similar to what we have already seen in cars like Hyundai Venue and Kia Sonet. This modification makes this Nano Electric the first electric car to have a clutch-less manual transmission.

Given that this Tata Nano Electric is still in its development stages as a project car, it has an exposed controller unit in the boot compartment. In the video, the folks of Zikoo clear out that this controller unit will be repositioned beneath the boot compartment in the later stages. The car is provided with a 72V charger. The battery pack of this Tata Nano Electric is placed in the front of the car under the hood. This pack is a combination of six lead-acid batteries connected in series, each of which has a rating of 12V 28Ah.

The co-founders said that they are also working on the possibilities of lithium-ion batteries, though it will make the overall cost of the process much more expensive. They also claim a driving range of 65-70 km on a single charge and a top speed of 80 km/h for this Tata Nano Electric. The overall cost of customization of this Tata Nano into the electric form is around Rs 1 lakh.

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