I saw a REVAi car near my Ramanthapur house, Hyderabad while cycling this morning. An old one it is! But it looked very good! This was the first electric car manufactured in India, almost a quarter century ago! These days there are no REVA car on the roads. Most of the people do not even know that there used to be such a car! Much before we thought of saving the environment, someone thought of it seriously. I must tell you there were no government subsidies or charging stations as we see today! I salute to the very thought of that person, almost 25 years ago!
The REVAi is a small & micro electric car, made by the Indian manufacturer Reva Electric Car Company between 2001 and 2012. By 2013 Reva had sold about 4,600 vehicles worldwide. Production of these cars ended in 2012. India was its main market, accounting for 55% of global sales, of which, 40% were in the Bangalore city alone! REVA was sold for ₹ 350,000 in India and has a “running cost of just 20 paise/km”.
In many countries the REVAi did not meet the criteria to qualify as a highway-capable motor vehicle. The vehicle was originally known as simply the REVA, but was then improved and renamed the REVAi.
The REVAi is a small three-door hatchback measuring 2.6 m (8 ft 6 in) long, 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in) wide and 1.5 m (4 ft 11 in) high. The car can accommodate two adults in the front and two children in the rear. The back seats can be folded down to provide cargo space. The maximum passenger and cargo weight is 270 kg. The REVAi is intended for city trips and commuting, particularly in congested traffic. with a speed limiter that limits the speed to twenty- five miles per hour.
The REVAi has been targeted by many critics, including criticisms that it is underpowered, unsafe, and ugly. The BBC programme Top Gear has consistently and incessantly lambasted REVAi, named it the Worst Car of 2007! Top Gear co-presenter James May referred to it as “the worst car for this year – and indeed for every other year whilst we have breath in our bodies – it is the most stupid, useless and dangerous car ever to stalk the earth. It is totally terrible, and disgusting.”
In 2013, Top Gear Magazine placed the REVAi on its list of “The 13 worst cars of the last 20 years.” In December 2016, twenty REVAi vehicles were destroyed in an episode of The Grand Tour and continuing on the theme of lambasting the car, which the presenters started whilst working together on Top Gear.
I do not believe either in the Top Gear or in The Grand Tour or their criticism of REVAi. The Top Gear co-presenter James May must be crazy or drunk or both to say whatever shit he said about REVAi. What he did not understand, and very sadly, was the tremendous effort of the REVAi company to reduce pollution and save the environment quarter century ago!
About the Author
Dr. K. Raja Gopal Reddy is a seasoned internationally qualified Insurance professional. What you are reading here, may not answer all the questions we have, but has the absolute power of asking unsettling questions which increase the interest in the strange world, and show the contradictory wonders lying just below the surface of the commonest things of life. Look at this disturbing but beautiful thought of Friedrich Nietzsche “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him”.
Dr. Reddy can be reached at: raja66gopal@gmail.com
