A new four-seater range extended electric vehicle
Tata Motors continued to upstage its far-longer established automaking peers at the 82nd Geneva Motor Show overnight with the Tata Megapixel concept, a new four-seater range extended electric vehicle (REEV).
The Megapixel is the evolution of last year’s Pixel concept and uses four in-wheel 10 kW motors and a 325 cc single cylinder petrol range-extending engine that generates 22 kW while charging the lithium ion phosphate battery. The result is a range of 900 km (559 miles) and an electric-only range of 87 km (54 miles).
The Megapixel has several other killer party tricks, including acutely turning wheels which give it a turning radius of just 2.8 meters (9.2 ft) and an inductive home charging system – park over the induction pad and it charges itself without needing to be plugged in. There’s also those very useful automatic double doors.
The Megapixel is a good looking little beastie, and was developed by Tata’s design centres in India, the UK and Italy. As a global car concept, this is both the company’s evolving idea of the ideal city car for global urban environments, and the one you’re most likely to see first if you don’t live in India.
Tata Motors is India’s largest automobile company, with enormous prospects. A few decades from now, India will be a superpower, with the world’s largest population having transitioned from bicycles to scooter and now aspiring to drive a car. India’s vehicle ownership ratios are currently the same as America’s were in 1912 – when the Model T Ford was top seller.