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Electric car REVA launched in Delhi

An Indian auto parts maker on Thursday launched a battery-powered car, with a running cost much lower than for conventional cars, it said, though the retail price was slightly higher.

Officials of the Bangalore-based Maini group told a news conference its two-seater electric car, the REVA, carries a showroom price of Rs 254,340 ($5,201) in the capital Delhi and has an operating cost of 0.40 paise per kilometre.

"Its ownership cost is lower (than comparable cars) over its life," Chetan Maini, managing director of The Reva Electric Car Company Ltd, an unlisted joint venture with Irvindale, California-based AEVT Inc, told Reuters.

The Maruti 800, India's smallest car, with an 800cc petrol engine made by Suzuki's Indian venture, costs, by comparison Rs 221,415 ($4,528) in Delhi, but has a running cost of Rs 1.60 per kilometre at current fuel prices.

The Maruti is the largest selling model in India, making up nearly a quarter of India's nearly 600,000 a year new car sales.

The Maini group expects to sell a modest 1,500 to 2,000 cars in the year to March 2003.

Studies have shown that the potential for electric vehicles is most attractive in India, Brazil and China, in that order, due to urban congestion, high pollution levels and large city car markets, a company statement said.

"It does away with leaking oil, dud spark plugs and the need to replace messy fuel filters," company officials said of the REVA, which was developed and launched at a cost of Rs 800 million.

"It offers zero-pollution city mobility," Maini said.

The REVA can run 80 km on a single charge at a maximum speed of 65 km per hour, can be charged from any 220 volt, 15 amp power source, and its power pack will last 40,000 km, company officials said.

But its lack of air-conditioning and its limited range blunts its usefulness in the sprawling Indian capital, where summer temperatures often shoot up to more than 40 degrees centigrade.

Maini said the company would introduce air-conditioning in its high-end models in the next two months, although this would reduce its range by about 15 to 20 per cent.

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