Chevrolet entered the Indian market in the year 2003 as a subsidiary of General Motors India Private Limited and it gained quite a lot of popularity back then. This American car manufacturer also bid adieu to the Indian market quite early i.e. in December 2017 and in its tenure of around one and a half decades, Chevrolet had some really amazing cars in its portfolio like the Spark, Tavera and the Cruze sedan. However, there was one cute Chevy which once got the tagline of the most fuel-efficient car in India. Yes, you got it right, it was the Chevrolet Beat Diesel and here we have for you a very interesting Chevrolet Beat Electric.
Pune-based Engineer cum EV Specialist Hemank Dabhade loves to convert two-wheelers and four-wheelers to fully electric vehicles as a part of his hobby and R&D. This EV specialist has converted his old Chevrolet Beat Diesel into a fully electric model and has been using it since quite a long time now. The individual posted a video on YouTube after extensively testing the EV in which he highlights the entire conversion process of the car and also one can see him driving this home-made Chevrolet Beat Electric.
Let's now talk about the specs and features of this electric Beat and before we begin with the specs, let me tell you that it was not converted into EV with the help of a standard conversion kit, instead, everything was in-house engineered. The Chevrolet Beat EV gets a 15 kW electric motor that develops around 20 PS of power and offers a peak torque output of 75 Nm and the continuous torque figure stands at 26 Nm. The EV also gets a 15 kWh battery pack that is claimed to deliver a range of around 110 kilometres per charge without AC and lights and approximately 95 kilometres of range with the electricals running.
Once the battery is drained, the Chevrolet Beat Electric can be fully juiced-up in around 6 hours via a regular wall-mounted home charger and in nearly 45 minutes via a fast charger as per the claimed figures. Also, one interesting thing is that since it is an EV, its clutch functioning has been eliminated but it still gets a manual gearbox. The EV gets a two-speed gearbox and its motor control unit (MCU) has been programmed such that it matches the motor RPM to enable an easy shift between the gears.
The developer has removed the other gears from the transmission of the car and replaced it with a lightweight blank sleeve that might also take care of its lubrication. The EV also gets regenerative braking but sadly misses out on an IP-certification. The electric car developer says that he uses the first gear of the EV to encounter heavy climb slopes and then comfortably switches it to the second gear to cruise comfortably at speeds up to 100 kmph. The owner says that it took around Rs. 4 lakhs to fully convert it into an electric vehicle and this Indian EV specialist is currently also working on a water-proof Maruti Suzuki 800 Electric that will have a better riding range.
So, this was all about the Chevrolet Beat Electric. What are your thoughts on it? Tell us in the comments below.
