Mahindra unveils five European-designed electric SUV concepts

16th August 2022

Bob Murray

Five new SUV concepts have been unveiled in Oxfordshire in a one-billion-dollar plan to take the largest car company you may never have heard of into the global electric car market.

The cars, including some notably powerful looking ones, come from one of India’s largest auto manufacturers, Mahindra, and are the work of designers at the firm’s advanced design studio working out of the Mahindra Formula E race team in Banbury.

In the past Mahindra cars have forged a reputation outside India for being cheap if not always cheerful. There have been on-off attempts to sell cars in the UK, including most recently the online-only e20 battery city car, billed as the country’s cheapest new electric car. Now it appears this Indian giant’s ambitions run much further – and the UK is in line to feel the effects.

The five concepts comprise two brands, XUV for the cost conscious and BE (Born Electric) as wannabe Audi rivals. They were all unveiled together on 15^th August to tie in with India’s Independence Day.

Unveiling five concepts in one go is ambitious – the last time any car company did that was at the Paris Motor Show in 2010 when former Lotus CEO Danny Bahar whipped the covers off five Lotus concepts, none of which were ever seen again. Thanks to a components-sharing tie-up with Volkswagen and a plan to sell the cars around the world, Mahindra’s concept blitz promises to be more substantive.

The five cars are all high-riding SUV-proportioned machines that share a strong design personality with their angular lines and thin “blades” of LED lighting. Three of the five are coupe-shaped with fastback lines that appear particularly successful in the most compact of the BE models, the 4,370mm long BE05. Is there is a slight suggestion of Lamborghini Urus in there, along with the clear design inspiration from Audi and Polestar?

All five are underpinned by a new skateboard-type electric platform called Inglo which uses components from Volkswagen’s MEB architecture. Anticipating safety fears, Mahindra says all the cars have been engineered to get a five-star global crash test rating.

The cars come with one or two motors, rear or all-wheel-drive and power outputs between 228PS (170kW) and 389PS (290kW), with a best 0-62mph time of under 6.0 seconds. Battery capacity can range between 60-80kWh and there is a fast-charge facility that can add 80 per cent juice in half an hour.

As well as the sportiest looking BE05, the range comprises boxier family-sized models, a larger coupe-style SUV and a top of the range flagship, the BE09. They will all go on sale first in the Indian market starting December 2024 with the arrival of the family-aimed XUV e8.

When – if – we will see them here is unknown. But given the UK design and electric race car connection, and the scale of the investment with much of it from British finance institutions, a local launch has to be on the cards.