u/pankajmi11

Hi everyone,

I stay in Wakad, Pune and I am planning to buy my first car for personal use. My budget is under ₹20 lakh.

My usage will be around 80% city driving and 1-2 outstation trips in 1-2 months.

With all the discussions around petrol and ethanol blending, I am wondering if it makes more sense to buy an EV instead.

For people who own EVs in Pune:

1. How is the charging infrastructure in and around Pune?
2. Do you face any issues with public charging or on highway trips?
3. Would you recommend an EV as a first car, or is a petrol car still the better choice?

Also, which car would you recommend under ₹20 lakh for my usage? I am open to both EV and petrol options.

P.S. This is a genuine question from someone buying their first car. Please don’t mistake this for a marketing survey. I am just looking for honest suggestions and real ownership experiences. I am also looking for a car with a good safety rating, so please keep that in mind while suggesting options.

Thanks!

So I finally visited Podikka after watching the Instagram reels. Safe to say, I wasn’t paying for the food but I was paying for the influencer marketing budget.

They advertised a “Pay Any Amount” offer for the first 500 customers from 8 AM–1 PM and 4 PM–10 PM.

Funny part?

- They never opened at 8 AM (at least when I checked).

- By 4 PM, there was already a board saying “1000+ customers served” and the offer was over.

- I visited on 26th June around 5:45 PM, and my token number was 271.

Maybe they’re counting customers in binary. Maybe each customer counts as four. I honestly couldn’t figure out how token #271 was generated if 1000+ customers were already served.

The whole thing felt like a brilliant marketing strategy:

1. Announce a crazy offer.

2. Get people to travel across the city because Instagram says it’s the next big thing.

3. Put up a “1000+ customers served” board.

4. Since people have already spent time and fuel getting there, they’ll think, “Chalo, aaye hi hain toh kha hi lete hain.”

Mission accomplished.

And then comes the food:

- Average taste.

- Tiny dosa for the price.

- No sambar.

- Extra chutney is chargeable, and the complimentary chutney is barely enough.

- Poor management.

- Every conversation somehow includes, “We’ve already served 1000+ customers.”

Congratulations. You served 1000+ customers. I just wish the food tasted like it.

Another interesting observation:

yesterday the Google rating was around 3.8 with about 53 reviews. Today it’s back to 5.0 by 8 people, and all the 1-star reviews I had seen earlier don’t seem to be there anymore. I don’t know the reason and how they were able to do it, but it definitely caught my attention.

Overall, it feels like the restaurant is serving Instagram hype much better than dosa.

Anyone else had the same experience, or did I just visit on the wrong day?

Body:
Looking for ownership experiences and long-term feedback from owners of these cars.

I’m considering:
Kia Seltos HTK Optional 2026
Renault Duster Tecno+ 2026
Tata Harrier
Skoda Kushaq
(All petrol)

Usage will mostly be:
80% city driving
20% highway
One long road trip in 2 months

Priorities:
Comfortable city driving
Reliable after-sales service
Good safety
Decent mileage
Low maintenance over long-term ownership

Would especially like to hear from current owners about:
Real-world city mileage
Service experience
Reliability issues
Suspension comfort in city traffic
Long-term maintenance costs

Also open to other SUV suggestions in the ₹20–23L budget.