Full transcript
0:00Many of you say that I don't talk about electric cars at all.
0:03That I don't make top 10 videos on them, don't bring Decodes, and don't suggest to you
0:08which car you should buy.
0:09And some people even say that I hate EVs.
0:11There's nothing like that. The thing is simply that I didn't have hands-on
0:16experience with EVs.
0:16I knew everything, but I hadn't properly driven the cars. I hadn't experienced them.
0:21But over the last year to eighteen months I've driven a lot of electric cars,
0:25from the BYD Sealion 7 to the Tiago EV.
0:26And not just driven them - I've kept them at home and experienced them over several days.
0:31And from that experience one big thing
0:33became clear to me: if you can't charge your EV at home or in your society -
0:36meaning you don't have a personal space where you can park your car
0:40and charge it daily from your own AC charger - then you shouldn't buy an EV.
0:44And why am I saying that? That's exactly what I've done this very
0:49detailed Decode on.
0:50In this video I'll tell you the real unaffordability of EVs, and also their real strengths.
0:56The strengths you never knew about.
0:57And all of this so you can take an informed decision if you're planning to buy an EV.
1:02And at the end of the video
1:04I'll also tell you who shouldn't buy an EV at all,
1:07who should buy a small EV, and who should buy an expensive big EV.
1:11So stay till the end
1:13of this video.
1:13So let's come straight to the point: what exactly is the problem?
1:16Look, I don't live on the ground floor, and my cars are parked in the society's common parking.
1:20So charging my car while living at home is difficult for me.
1:23I can't charge in my society either.
1:24And when electric cars came to me for review, I faced a lot of trouble.
1:28The problem is that charging my EVs at public chargers every other day
1:32became very inconvenient.
1:33First, understand one small basic thing. The rest will make sense after that.
1:37There are mainly two types of chargers. One is an AC charger and one
1:41is a DC charger, and there are power variations within them.
1:43AC chargers, which are the most common, are 3.3 kW.
1:47And if at home you
1:48get a charging box installed - a full- fledged EV charging box installation -
1:52you can get a charger of up to 7.2 kW.
1:54And then come the DC
1:56chargers, which can be 25 kW, 65 kW, even 100 kW.
1:59There are higher ones too, but they're rare in India.
2:02Meaning they charge very
2:04quickly.
2:04So suppose you have a small EV that takes 14 hours to charge from 10 to 100% on a 3.3 kW charger.
2:10The same car on a 7.2 kW AC
2:12charger will take about 6 hours.
2:14And on a DC fast charger, going from 20 to 80% will take just 30 minutes.
2:19But only if you get a 65
2:21kW charger for a small EV.
2:22But that doesn't happen, and that's the problem.
2:25One day I set out for work with an EV and thought I'd charge on the way.
2:29I had to go to South Delhi, and at that location the app was showing that most of the chargers
2:35were slow 3.3 kW AC chargers.
2:38Yes, there were DC chargers too, but mostly just 15 or 25 kW ones.
2:41There were no 60 kW chargers anywhere near my location. And the slow-speed
2:45DC chargers that were there - one got occupied by the time I reached, and one just wasn't working.
2:49Which meant I had to take the car to a mall, where I ran into a different kind of problem.
2:54A problem that even has a term for it.
2:56Bay hogging. Now what is that?
2:57I'll come to it in a little while.
2:59Before that, understand that what happened to me is happening to almost everyone right now. And
3:04I understood the reason for it in my research.
3:06By March 2026, 27,000 public chargers had been installed in India, which is a very big number.
3:11Considering that the
3:12EV market in India is only 5.5% of the total vehicle market right now.
3:16And on the other side we have around 1 lakh petrol pumps, which serve the remaining
3:2195% ICE vehicle market.
3:22In India there are currently 235 EVs per charger.
3:26Whereas if we look at America, there are only 20
3:30EVs per charger.
3:30So their ratio is much better than India's.
3:33And EV-centric countries have an even better ratio. So India's position in EV
3:37charging infrastructure doesn't look particularly good. Right?
3:39Let me make it worse.
3:41Did you know that of those 27,000 chargers reported in India,
3:43only 8,000 were DC fast chargers?
3:45So the issue I faced shows up in the numbers too.
3:48And that's why, when you open the app, you see chargers everywhere,
3:51and yet people all over Instagram and YouTube are complaining about the infrastructure at the same time.
3:56Yes, but slowly India's charging infrastructure will get better.
4:03The government has allotted a lot of money for it, but that'll take time.
4:06Until then you'll also have to deal with a lack of civic sense around EV infrastructure.
4:10A little while ago I mentioned a term to you: bay hogging.
4:13When I took my EV to the mall, I saw that all four guns on both chargers were occupied.
4:18But one car's charging was about to finish, which is why I'd gone there.
4:21It was only going to take 15 minutes to fully charge. So I decided to wait.
4:26But my wait went from 15 minutes to an hour and a half.
4:30Literally an hour and a half later that guy came, vacated his spot, and I got the vacancy message.
4:34His car had been charged long before. But he kept occupying the charger,
4:38and this phenomenon is called bay hogging.
4:39Meaning people don't leave their spot even after charging is complete.
4:43Companies abroad have actually found a solution for this.
4:46What they do there is: if someone keeps their car parked there despite being charged,
4:51penalty charges start applying to them. This
4:55This should happen in India too. There's another civic sense issue I've faced as well.
4:59People literally park their petrol cars in the charging bay and walk off.
5:02Maybe they don't find a parking spot anywhere else, so they squeeze in there.
5:05And there are plenty of people who park their petrol car in the charging spot even when the whole parking lot is empty.
5:11I've faced this issue too, and it's extremely frustrating.
5:14The charger is available and you still can't use it.
5:17And this issue
5:18has a law around it in the US too. There's a penalty for it there, imposed by the government.
5:22But in India this law probably hasn't even been made yet.
5:24So because of not being able to charge at home,
5:27you can face five problems.
5:28Your day-to-day schedule will keep getting ruined finding a reliable, fast charger.
5:32Then charging itself will take time, which can also ruin your schedule.
5:36Suppose you left home late for office.
5:38You might find broken-down chargers, and your whole plan can fall apart.
5:42You could fall victim to bay hogging,
5:43or someone might park their dinosaur-fuel car right in your charging spot and walk away.
5:47The point is, you can't depend on outside chargers
5:50every single day. It'll become very frustrating.
5:52Sometimes you'll manage it, sometimes you won't, and you'll realise you can't even drive
5:58your own car properly.
5:59And that's why many people still look uncertain about EVs.
6:02Just as buying an EV is a big decision and many people are still uncertain about it,
6:06your investment returns also go through a lot of uncertainty
6:10depending on world conditions.
6:11You can't buy an EV and suddenly sell it.
6:14But you can diversify your portfolio and invest across all criteria.
6:19And for a 1 to 3 year requirement, bonds that give you a fixed return of 9 to 12%
6:24can help you invest in an asset
6:26that US investors have been investing in for years.
6:29But even today only 10% of Indians know about it, and that's bonds, which can become
6:34an asset class for you that earns a fixed return of 9 to 12%,
6:37and that too without any long-term commitment.
6:39Over time, the SEBI regulatory framework
6:42and digital bond platforms have made it possible for retail investors to invest in corporate bonds with small amounts.
6:48Wint Wealth is one such platform.
6:49Bonds aren't a complex
6:51topic. It's simply that when a government or a company needs money,
6:54instead of taking a bank loan they take money from the public. In return
6:59they give you a bond.
7:00And to invest in this you don't need lakhs of rupees - you can start with just 1,000 rupees,
7:04and you also have 3 to 6 month
7:06short-term options available,
7:07plus the option to withdraw money in between if needed.
7:10So download Wint Wealth today - you'll find the link in the description.
7:14Now, if you can charge an EV at home, if you have that facility,
7:17then let me tell you what a great city car it can be.
7:20The biggest benefit you'll get
7:22is in running cost.
7:23If you can charge your EV at home, then on a basic AC charger, cars like the Nexon EV, Syros EV and Windsor EV
7:28will cost you just 1 to 2 rupees per km
7:31for daily driving.
7:32Whereas same-size petrol and diesel cars will cost you around 6 to 8 rupees per km.
7:37So there's a very big difference in running cost.
7:39And this running-cost difference stays big in the city and with home charging.
7:43And the reason is
7:44that ICE cars' mileage drops substantially in traffic.
7:48Whereas EVs' range increases a lot.
7:50Also, charging at home makes your EV even cheaper, because AC chargers have lower per-kilowatt
7:57charges.
7:57Whereas with commercial DC chargers, the charging company has to pay the DISCOM more, and the charging company
8:04also keeps a healthy cut as profit.
8:06So charging at a public charger can make your EV quite expensive.
8:10The second factor that makes them excellent city cars is single pedal driving.
8:13Now many people buy ICE cars in automatic. But even there you have to press two pedals:
8:18brake and accelerator.
8:19But in EVs, when you set regenerative braking to the second or third level, you don't need to press the brake at all.
8:26The car slows
8:27and stops on its own.
8:27I used to think, what difference does this really make? Two pedals there, one pedal here.
8:31You don't have to press a gear or clutch, so it won't matter much, one-pedal driving
8:35or two-pedal driving.
8:35But I'm telling you, it does matter - especially for people coming home tired from the office who don't want to tire themselves more.
8:42For them, one-pedal driving turns out to be very good.
8:44And it does regenerate too, so your battery keeps filling up a little.
8:47The third factor is the AC. EV
8:49AC compressors run off their own electric motor.
8:52They have nothing to do with the car's motor.
8:55Whereas in ICE cars, the AC
8:58compressors run off the engine belt.
8:59And when the car is standing, in neutral, its RPM drops, because you can't keep high RPM in a stationary car.
9:04And because of this, what happens
9:06is that your AC compressor's speed also drops a lot,
9:08and in bumper-to-bumper traffic or in a parked car in the afternoon, you can feel quite hot.
9:14So in bumper-to-bumper traffic you get a benefit here too with an EV: you don't have to face the heat.
9:19One more thing that goes in EVs' favour
9:22is the silent drive.
9:23Look, there's no engine noise in EVs. But because of that, every squeaking noise from the suspension
9:30comes through to you.
9:31Because there's no engine humming sound, all the other sounds come inside.
9:34And that's why brands do much more insulation in EVs than in ICE cars.
9:38Which solves the problem of stray noises coming through.
9:40And the ambient noise from outside also comes in far less.
9:44And to reduce road noise, EVs even get
9:46acoustic foam liners inside their tyres.
9:49So if you can charge an EV at home,
9:53an EV can be an ideal city car for you,
9:55and these are the benefits - the pointers I'm showing you here.
9:58But EVs also have two costs, or downsides,
10:01that are slightly bigger than an ICE car's.
10:03First is tyres.
10:04I just told you insulation is put in to quieten them. That's not all that's done.
10:09An EV can be 200 to 400 kg heavier than its ICE counterpart, depending on the car's size.
10:14For instance, the Mahindra XEV
10:169S weighs around 2200 kg.
10:17Meaning this car is heavier than a Fortuner.
10:19And that's why electric cars' tyres are made stronger to bear more load.
10:24If you look at similar-size tyres from the same company,
10:28the load number on EV tyres is bigger than on ICE ones.
10:32For example, here you'll see it's 98 for the EV tyre,
10:35which means 750 kg of weight can be taken on one tyre. Whereas
10:40on the ICE car's tyre it says 94, meaning one tyre is built to take around 670 kg.
10:45But this is seen more in big, fast
10:48EVs.
10:48In small EVs, normal tyres occasionally do the job. Because they aren't very fast,
10:52so the pressure on the tyre is less, and they aren't that heavy either,
10:57since the battery size is small.
10:58Besides this, an EV tyre's rolling resistance also has to be kept low.
11:02Otherwise the range can drop.
11:03So the heavy R&D done on tread design and material - you're the one who pays that cost too.
11:08Look, on small EVs
11:10I'll say again that there isn't a huge difference in tyre cost. A little, maybe.
11:14But big EVs' tyres are 18 or 19 inch, handling 250
11:18to 300 horsepower EVs.
11:19Their prices go up to 15, 18, 20, even 25 thousand. So look at that.
11:23Whereas their ICE
11:25counterparts only go up to 8, 9, 12, 13, 14 thousand.
11:28Literally the difference can be 30 to 40%.
11:30Besides this, EVs'
11:32single biggest enemy is resale value.
11:33Look, there aren't many EVs in India yet, and there aren't that many around.
11:38So their resale value can't be properly judged yet - what it actually averages out to.
11:43But it's lower than ICE. Take the US as an example:
11:46in the first 5 years EVs lose 57.2% of their resale value on average.
11:50Whereas ICE cars lose up to 41% of their value. So there's a 16%
11:55difference.
11:55Now, where an ICE car's resale value depends heavily on its running - how many kilometres it has done -
12:01an EV's depends very
12:03heavily on its battery health.
12:04An EV's battery can on average be 40 to 60% of the car's own cost.
12:09It's extremely expensive, and that's why when you go to sell your car,
12:12your car's battery health matters a great deal. And if you charge your EV
12:16mostly at home on your slow charger,
12:18your car's battery health degrades very slowly compared to cars that are mostly
12:24charged on DC fast chargers at public chargers.
12:26So charging the car on a DC charger every day isn't good.
12:29And that's why, again, that home-charger
12:32factor comes into play here.
12:33EV batteries are so expensive that brands have started giving lifetime warranties these days. But not all of them.
12:38So there are two things
12:40you must keep in mind when buying an EV.
12:41First, is the brand giving you a lifetime warranty?
12:44Lifetime means 15 years, the 15 years that registration used to be.
12:47Are you getting that much warranty?
12:48And second, is the brand allowing you to transfer your car's ownership to another owner or
12:54not?
12:54And if it is allowing it, how many years of that warranty will the second owner get?
12:58Look, these things are very important.
12:59If your car's warranty isn't transferable, your car's resale value will fall even further.
13:04One more thing
13:05is that the warranty you get on EV batteries often doesn't cover damage.
13:09If any damage happens, you may have to make an insurance claim,
13:13because obviously an EV battery is very expensive.
13:15So your insurance should also have battery cover. Check that too when taking insurance.
13:19So these are some additional costs on EVs
13:22compared to petrol cars.
13:23But if you look at the long term, once you add up the petrol cost and the maintenance cost,
13:27petrol and diesel cars work out more expensive
13:30in the long term than EVs.
13:31So let me come to the conclusion and also suggest some cars to you.
13:35First thing, again, after knowing all this, you'll have concluded this much:
13:39if in your society, at home, outside your home,
13:43inside your home - anywhere at all - you can't install your own personal charger and charge the car,
13:48then you shouldn't buy an EV.
13:50I don't think so. At least for the next two or three years I don't think you should do that.
13:54Second thing: if you can park an electric car at home and charge it,
13:57then I think you should use an electric car only as a city car for now, or consider it that way.
14:03If you're thinking you'll
14:05take an electric car on the highway as well as run it in the city,
14:07then remember that range anxiety with electric cars on the highway is a given. The infrastructure isn't
14:12good everywhere. It's okay on some highways, not on others.
14:14And if you're buying an EV as a city car, then in the city, the smaller the car the better.
14:20So I think small electric cars like the Tiago EV and Punch EV make a lot of sense.
14:23Many people are buying them.
14:25And with a small EV you can also keep an
14:27ICE car that will meet your highway needs.
14:29Buy it new or buy it used. I'd consider buying a used ICE car, a slightly bigger one,
14:35five or six years old, and using it for the highway.
14:37And if you think no, we want a slightly more expensive, slightly premium car for the city too,
14:42considering the city, then you can go for the Syros EV. I liked that car a lot.
14:46You can take the Windsor EV too, but personally I'd prefer the Syros. But
14:50again, this should also be preferable only for the city.
14:53But if you want a big electric car that's fast, feature-loaded,
14:57looks big, and can go up to 500 km,
14:59then I think in that scenario you'll need to spend 20 to 25 lakh.
15:03Here I'd recommend cars like the Curvv EV,
15:06the XEV 9S or 9e, and the Creta EV.
15:08The Creta EV can go around 400 km if you drive with a light foot, and these other three cars
15:15can go up to 500 km.
15:16All four are very good cars. I'm telling you from my personal experience. I liked them.
15:21But if I
15:22personally could charge my car at home and were buying an electric car, I'd go with the second option.
15:26I'd buy a small electric car and keep a second-hand
15:29big car at home that I'd use for highways.
15:31So that's my personal preference. What's yours? You can tell me in the comments.
15:35And yes, please follow me on Instagram too. There I
15:38post good content, and a lot of it is exclusive there. Thank you.
15:41Fixed returns are not guaranteed or assured returns.
15:43Investments in corporate debt securities, municipal debt
15:46securities and securitised instruments carry credit,
15:48market and default risk, including payment delay or default.