Did ya'll know that the car (BE6 79 P3 OG) honks as the tyre pressure hits 35 PSI while filling air??
For the first couple of tyres, I was looking around for who is honking and why. I didn't see anybody and asked the attendant if it's my car. He educated me on how this car gives a single honk as tyre pressure hits 35 psi.
Keep learning new things about this car every now and then.
I recently did a round trip (BLR - Mysore - Kabini) in my BE6 P3 79 (non Sporteq) with 3 friends and the drive and ride comfort were excellent. I have done a 2000km drive with just me and a copassenger before, and I loved the whole drive, it was super comfy and fatigue free. But rear seats were never tested on long drives.
For the first time, I had 4 adults in the car for a longish trip, and a boot full of luggage. I specifically asked the rear seat passengers (5'8" x 2) and they were effusive in their praise of ride comfort. They had plenty of room and did not feel fatigued or "claustrophobic" as people have labelled this car to be. I was surprised to hear that, but I could clearly see that the rear passengers were comfortable through the trip. The car is planted with zero body roll. Recent updates have dialed in the active suspension and uneven roads and potholes are handled well.
This is however strictly a 4 seater car, putting 3 in the back is a squeeze and just ok for short trips. For the size of the car, space is definitely at a premium and probably contributes to the impression of lack of space. But for 4 adults, this car is perfect.
As for speed and range - I averaged between 80 - 100km/h and the efficiency was 6.7km/kWh.
Also used ADAS frequently on the Mysore expressway and it really helps you to relax a bit. Only, it's just too aggressive and inconsistent with detecting hands on the steering. I had to repeatedly grab / move my hands on the steering for it to acknowledge my hands, haven't figured out what works best.
I had planned on getting the QPo or GFX mats instead of the overpriced OEM mats for my BE6. But after buying the QPo for my Fronx, I changed my mind. While the QPo fit is amazing and does its job brilliantly, it has a utilitarian / plasticky feel. I restarted my search for a bit more "premium feel" mats that might look more in line with the BE6 interiors.
I couldn't find anything that was better or at least matched the OEM mats in feel and looks. I just finally bit the bullet and plonked down 7k for these, even though it doesn't provide full coverage on the driver side.
The service center reps are woefully ill informed about Mahindra EVs and their software state, which is surprising because more than half the vehicles I see there are EVs. They had no clue about the last OTA update, and the instructions about SC visit to enable Profiles/Custom Drive/Pawpal/Keep mode etc.
The gentleman I was working with wasn't even sure if NFC cards are enabled for BE6. He checked with someone on the phone and then opened the job card for this. A few hours laters he calls me and says the NFC Card is done. I asked him if all the features of the last OTA are enabled and he said they checked, and no updates are available. 😖
That sinking feeling when you feel like you know more than the "expert" when you yourself are shooting in the dark, got very real.
Thanks to a comment on Reddit, I sent him the screenshot of the SA1 update note, which calls out the SC visit to enable features.
Looks like they went back and probably called up someone who actually knows something, because I started seeing a string of car ON/OFF notifications on the Me4u app.
All this after making it clear while booking the SC appointment of why I am even making the 40 minute drive to drop off my car!
After a few more hours, they finally confirmed the updates are done, and I checked that my ECU version was 16.212 (It was 15.312 earlier). .
I already had Profiles and Custom drive mode from before, only the Pawpal, Keep modes are new. Haven't tested any of these.
After seeing comments on Reddit, I checked the Me4u app, and sure enough, it had the NFC key for iphone option available.
The process was pretty seamless, NFC pairing did take a couple of tries maybe cuz my phone wasn’t properly aligned but it works! This is so exciting, my wife was wondering about the constant stream of lock/unlock notifications 😆
Just received Version SA1 BEG FSWU001 on the P3 79
It lists features that I already had in my current version like user profiles and custom drive mode and some features like Pawpal, Keep and something related to “OHC” and lights that weren’t there before.
It also mentioned i need to take it to the service centre to “enable” these features.
The update took about 2.5 hours even though it said 24 hours. Post update I don’t notice any change, nor did the ECU version change from 15.312.
I haven’t had an update take this long and was expecting to see some obvious changes. Anyone else?
Here's a link for how its done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwMJHMSmjVY
Rolling cables the conventional way like we usually do, will cause twists and kinks, causing stress to the internal wires, eventually leading to breakage. This is one of the reasons audio / USB cables tend to die. EV charger cables being long and heavy gauge can be especially susceptible to this in the long run.
Even if you don't consider long term damage, storing it using the over under method makes it really convenient when unrolling as it will effortlessly come out kink and twists free.
This method can be used with power extensions, USB cables, audio cables, network cables - essentially all cables - extending their life.
Just drove home from the Service centre with noticeably better suspension feel. They had mentioned they will apply some updates besides general washing and cleaning. The update was only applied to the “infotainment”.
I didn’t feel any difference in the car until i went over a speed breaker and a couple of potholes. It felt like there were pillows placed in the potholes. Usually i brace for hard impact since i had made peace with the fact that the ride on the BE6 is just stiff.
I hope this sticks, as i have heard this adaptive suspension has a mind of its own.
Its pretty cool that navigation map shows on the Driver ID as well vs only the Centre ID, but on Google Maps this arrangement is not very useful because you don't see ETA/Distance or next stop info on the DID. It just mirrors the navigation display from CID, with no other information.
On the Centre ID, you can see the ETA and Distance, but not the next stop information in a multi stop route. Next stop is important, especially when you are planning charging stops.
I tried Apple Maps for kicks in the recent long drive I did and found it much more useable with dual screens. The DID shows navigation with ETA for next stop, and the CID shows the overall route progress.
Search and Lane guidance is not great for India, but most major locations do show up and the routing is very similar to Google Maps. So for long routes, I might continue to use Apple Maps cross referencing Google maps to make sure the overall route is correct.
Submitted feedback to Google, it will be cool if they can implement something similar.
Hyd-BLR - After initially seeing about 6.8 km/kWH, I was only able to muster 5 - 5.3 through the whole drive. I was doing a combination of coasting at L0 and switching to L1/L2 regen for medium to heavy traffic. TBH, this was lower than I expected.
But as soon as I got into city traffic, it climbed to 7+ with L2 mostly. Was aiming for 90 km/h most of the time.
Since it was my first long road trip, I was topping up every 200km so don’t really have a sense of total actual range.
Stayed overnight and charged at the Jio-BP station with all 24 guns at 120kWH or higher. Took about 40 mins to reach 95% from low 40s. Charging rate drops after 80% to about 45kWH, further dropping to 22kWH into the late 90s.
BLR-Coimbatore - Coimbatore was just a half way point enroute to Kochi, as a planned charging stop at a Mercedes showroom. I had originally planned it via Salem but Google maps pulled its trick during a missed turn and rerouted via the Sathyamangalam wildlife sanctuary. That was about 200+ km of drive with no EV chargers enroute and uneven terrain. Even with about 80% charge as I entered the forest area, I was a bit concerned about a potential uphill terrain eating through charge. I was getting a 6.3 .. but as the elevation increased it dipped to 3.5. Shouldn’t have worried though, the steep downhill run started soon enough, hitting a peak of 22.6 through the hairpin bends at L2 regen (L3 was too aggressive) gaining about 2% charge.
Made it to the Merc charging point with about 45% left.
Coimbatare - Kochi - the efficiency was insane at 8+ all through the rest of the 130 odd km, generally sitting around 80km/h. On this leg I abandoned L0 entirely and stuck to using L2 all the way through, mostly highway driving with light to medium traffic.
Efficiency Takeaway; Unless you have super long stretches of open empty roads, L0 / Coasting doesn’t help, especially for light footed driving. L2 is the sweet spot. L1 regen is too low and L3 is too aggressive, best for bumper to bumper traffic. Uphill driving will cut your range in half. In heavy traffic like in BLR for eg. I can regularly hit 9 with L2/3.
The range shown on the MID is just a mild guess and the range varies wildly with driving style and terrain. Would be wise to Keep an eye on km/kWH number when doing long trips.
Would love to know others’ experiences with long trips and efficiency.
Plenty of chargers ofcourse on this busy route, most are 60kW. I was concerned that the popular locations enroute will likely have a queue and I was right. Since I left at 4:30AM, arrived early at Lepakshi and had few guns available at ChargeZone. My charging session lasted about 20 mins and there was a queue by the time I came back. Cost about 29 ₹ / unit - pretty expensive for 60kW.
The 80% + charging did not slow down, it was as fast as upto 80%, was expecting additional waiting time to hit 90+ but went from about 43 to 93 in about 30 mins on 60kW.
Whatever you do, avoid Indian Oil Pump E-Chargers. Rates are cheap (14 ₹ / unit) but you get what you pay for I guess. It doesn’t work. It felt like an Uncharted game puzzle to figure it out. Downloaded its dedicated app, put 500 ₹ and somehow managed to get it to start charging. The nearby transformer promptly blew up taking the charging station with it. Came upon another IO Pump, thought I’ll use up the 500 ₹, and the charger just sat at “Preparing”.. same for another car on the other gun.
Have been sticking to well reviewed charging stations on the PlugShare and Google maps. Me4u has some decent suggestions as well.
Route planning is a mess, there is no one resource. And you have to be very careful on which locations to trust, always keep backup locations.
I think i have about 10 apps for EVs on my phone now. Probably will have more by the end of the trip. Every state has a different brand operating popular chargers.
I had no internet connectivity in the car (BE6 P3 79) since about 10 days, right around the time there was widespread network outage for most Mahindra BEVs. My cellular connection was stuck on '4G' but had no access to the cloud/Me4u or the media apps, even though it was showing full bars. I tried everything except disconnect the LV battery.
I didn't want to mess around with the month old car, so booked a service appointment. When I described the issue to them, they immediately said this needs to be escalated to Mahindra and they will generate a "TAR" and this will take 2-3 days. I double checked if they are sure an update or some sort of reset won't fix this, and they assured me it's a backend issue.
I requested if they could try disconnecting the LV battery just for my peace of mind, since I read online that this resolves all kinds of issues for people. To be fair to them, they were all very polite and nice, and readily agreed to do it with the disclaimer that "it's unlikely to fix anything".
No prizes for guessing what happened 😄 . Glorious 5G after the battery (-ve) was disconnected and reconnected.
After all this, the service manager tells me "Sir, in settings if you go to Exterior and press and hold Lock for 10 seconds, you can access Engineering menu and there is a reset option there that will reboot the ECU - this way you don't have to disconnect battery.
Brother, you could have just tried this first, before declaring this issue needs to be escalated to the OEM!
They had NFC cards available for the BE6 (750 ₹ ) but mentioned that it's not yet enabled for the BE6 and XEV-9e, only currently working with the XEV-9S. Despite the NFC card option showing in the UI.
Whenever this is enabled, the car will need to be brought to the service center to program the cards. I honestly am not sure now if this is actually true but I figured I'll buy the NFC cards at first service.
Silver lining is that misdiagnosis of the issue notwithstanding, the Service center experience at VVC Kothaguda was quite decent, and everyone was generally helpful.
I just received a call that "Mahindra" is sending me a road side assistance card that will be valid for 15 years and I will have to pay 5000 ₹ on delivery. They obviously knew my address, didn't think much of it until I got a second "verification" call and I just googled it while on call with the gentleman. I then asked hey you don't sound like you are from Mahindra, he said "no sir, I am calling from inside RTO since your vehicle was just registered and RC generated".
Your data is just floating out there for these scammers to take advantage of, be cautious!
After driving my Verna Fluidic 2012 up until recently, I decided to take the plunge and book a BE6 Pack 3 79KWH. I was always clear for a few years now, that my next car will be an EV - I was just waiting and watching on the sidelines for something compelling to show up in the market. Something with 500km range in a decent package.
I was sold on this car the day Mahindra announced them. While the BE6 looked unbelievably good to me, I was leaning more on the XEV 9e side since “bigger is better”. However, a test drive completely flipped it for me. The BE6 driving dynamics and car handling just felt superior. While I really wanted the larger cabin, I just couldn’t argue with the decidedly better driving experience. Stiff suspension notwithstanding :D
I am a gadget head, and I work with tech for work and as a hobby. The loaded to gills features is right up my alley and I just can’t get enough of it.
I am incredibly impressed with what Mahindra has put together. From the speaker system, to cabin features, to the Me4u app - it’s honestly beyond my expectations. The car build quality, especially the panel gaps, could use some improvements but the general heft of the doors and the materials, even the horn honk, feel really good. This car is punching above its weight with this package.
I had seen pretty much all of the reviews, walkthroughs and ownership experience videos online so I thought I knew everything about the car. But even still, I am discovering new things. Things like - reminder for phone still on the charging pad as I step out of the car, or the car auto unlock/lock on approach , or the customisability across various features - as an example I can set how far up the boot lid opens. These are things I would be happy without, but it’s nice to have, and delightful.
I know there are minor bugs and certain promised features which still haven’t made it out, and the service experience is still unknown to be as a first time Mahindra ownere - but I can’t help appreciate Mahindra for putting together this package with a thoughtfully designed, well balanced set of features, looks and performance.
What’s the wait period looking like after the initial booking for BE6 Pack 3 and other variants? I asked for a vehicle - Pack 3 in stealth black - “from factory” when the dealer (Hyderabad) offered cars from their stockyard if they had the color I want. Booked on the 13th of May, and they estimate delivery sometime next week which is less than 3 weeks.
Does that sound right?