India's First All Wheel Drive Tata Tiago.EV Is Here: Even Gets A Widebody Kit [Video]
The Tata Tiago.EV has been a popular car in the Indian market. It is available with two battery packs- 19.2 kWh and 24 kWh. The stock car comes with a Front Wheel Drive (FWD) layout. The folks at Northway Motors are working on building an AWD (All Wheel Drive) version of it, calling it the Tiago.EV Rally Edition. Here is more about this project.
In a video that was shared on YouTube the Tiago.EV finished in Teal Blue, can be seen being worked on. The team at Autologue India scan it to take measurements and have clear ideas of the shapes and designs of the EV's panels and surfaces. The stock wheels have been replaced with a set of better-looking alloys. The video explains that 3D scanning for small parts takes around 1-1.5 hours. However, for large projects like a full-size car, the whole process can be completed in 3.5 hours.
The folks at Autologue 3D print the moulding, take fibre pieces out of that and fit the same on the actual car. The Tiago.EV looks good with the widebody kit on. There are barely any panel gaps or paint mismatches. Looks like a neat build. Towards the end of the video, we get to know that there is still a lot of work remaining on the vehicle.
The suspension, in particular, requires immediate, intense attention. The ride height also needs to be tweaked, before the wide-body kit is fine-tuned to match the final suspension and ride height setups. This is an ongoing build/project and the team could be working on it as you read this article. We expect more videos further detailing the progress to be out in the upcoming weeks.
A Quick Look At What They're Building
Northway Customs envisioned building a rally-going, WRC-inspired, powerful, fun-to-drive EV. More interestingly, they wanted to build it out of a cheap, 'plain Jane' electric car that's already on sale in India. This vision soon made them land on basing the project on a Tiago EV. A previous video on the channel shows the team at Northway Motors brainstorming and arriving at the decision to buy the Tiago EV. They chose to invest in a used car rather than buy one fresh.
So, what are Northway's intentions with the Tiago.EV? Well, they would give it bigger wheels, a wide body kit, and an electric powertrain which will add an extra battery pack and an electric live axle to it. The result would thus be a Tiago.EV with two electric motors and AWD!
In its stock form, the electric hatchback comes well-packaged. Thus fitting the new rear axle and the additional battery pack will require major re-engineering. This being a top-spec, comes with a 24 kWh battery pack.
In addition to it, the team plans to install a 16 kWh battery pack that would power the rear axle. On the stock car, the battery pack sits towards the rear, and has a split design. A part of it sits under the rear seat while the rest is placed under the boot.
The team will place the new battery pack in a way that the weight distribution stays balanced. The stock battery pack will be placed slightly higher up than on the stock car. The rear axle will be independent, which means the car will be able to drive in both FWD and AWD depending on user preferences. When completed, this will be India's most powerful (expect the torque to be around 500 Nm!) and most fun-to-drive Tiago EV...