Mahindra XEV 9S Walkaround Review: Features, Interior, Tech & Space Explored
Here it is, the Mahindra XCV 9S. It is the third vehicle to be brought out on Mahindra’s pure electric inlow architecture, following in the footsteps of the B6 as well as the XCV 9E. And of course, this is a car that has a closer relationship to the 9E than it does to the B because in effect, it is a 9E without the coupe body style and a third row of seats. I’m going to throw a couple of key details in your direction. But while doing that, Samir, why don’t you give the ladies and gentlemen a quick look around the car itself. So, first of all, it has been launched at a price of between 19.95 lakh going up to about 29.45 lakh. There are a couple of variants. There’s pack one above. There is the pack two above, pack three, as well as a pack three above. Now, interestingly, while we expected the same battery packs as the 90 and the B6 itself, this thing has another one, a bit of a surprise that’s come in in between. So, the base model is available with 59 and 79 kWh battery packs. The Pack 2 is available with 70 and 79 kWh battery packs, while the other variants get the 79 only. So, you can base your range estimates based on what kind of battery pack you’re going to be opting for. Of course, we have done a range test of these 79 kWh battery packs. So, you can get an idea of what you get at most spoiler, well, no spoilers. You’re going to get somewhere in the range of maybe 480 to 500 realistically, even with this car when you get the biggest battery pack. We’re going to work our way down from there. Now, let’s begin with the details of the car itself. Now, one question that a lot of people will have is, is it appropriate to call this car a 7 electric? Not quite, but I get where it’s coming from because this is not based on the same platform. There’s a significant difference in terms of the tech that you have on board and of course the motors, battery, something you can’t do on the 7 platform at all. But it is a monok. But the reason why it is going to be perceived in that way is because of the similarity in design. It’s not a far cry from that, is it? But interesting what we’ve seen here is that while we expected it to wear a very similar face as the 9E itself, the 9S has got actually bigger, chunkier LED DRLs and a completely different headlight setup as well. It does make it look a lot more distinctive, works better with the sort of boxy shape that you have for the car itself. And you also have some interesting details like you see in the lower half of the air dam. These slightly sporty, slightly premium touches like the dark chrome lining for the air dam itself. This bit is similar to the 9E. One of those bits that does tend to pick up a fair bit of, let’s say, stone chips. Lot of customers have reported that. That’s something that you might want to get a little bit of a PPF on. Then we come towards the side profile. I’m going to move to the back and give you a full view of the side profile. Obviously, it does look very very similar to the 7O, especially from this angle, save for the wheel design. Now, one thing you have to note is the 9S gets 18in alloy wheels, while you do have the option of 19s or 20s when it comes to the 9 or even B6 for that matter. To be honest with you, I am not a fan of this wheel design. And one of the things that should be mentioned here is that these arrow flaps that you see on the wheel itself, they can be removed. And based on some people who have seen the car with us, I’m going to try and experiment with that later on just to get an idea of what this looks like without those flaps. Generally, is it really worth it to get those few kilometers over the lifetime of a car to lose the aesthetics that way? I don’t think so. Then we also come to this. You have the pop out door handle. Something that was introduced even with the 7O and thankfully they are motorized. So when you hit unlock, they do come out. So you don’t have to do like a twostep motion to get them out. So it’s form meeting function in that sense. But what I do like about the side profile is that if you look at the 9E for example, it had a lot of bulbous cladding on this side. A little bit of a mountain-like finish to the black cladding that you saw on the side here. Because of the subtlety of the integration of the black bits, I feel like it looks like a lot more balanced a design. Let me know if you agree. Quick look over here to look at the charging flap. Of course, no worries about E20, E35, E5 million coming in with an electric car. What I really do like and something I’m assuming is going to be shared even with the 7O facelift itself is this tail light finish. Really nice, really classy. I love the black finish in between that makes it look just a little bit more sporty, a little bit more understated even, and definitely blends well with the design of the car overall. Down here you will not be seeing any specific badging as such. On the fenders you will see those barcodes for like pack 3, pack 2, whatever may be the case. But apart from this XCV 9S badging, nothing much. So they’ve managed to keep it quite clean in that sense. And in case you are curious, the ground clearance number on this car is about 219 mm unladen. So overall, yes, it is going to be quite similar to the XUV 7O in terms of it design, but there are enough distinctive elements besides the green number plate. itself that you’re going to be getting to tell this apart as a pure electric SUV. All right, let’s get a first look at the boot space. And oh my god, there’s no power tailgate. It’s a bit of an oddity. So here you can see the third row has been adjusted to a relatively relaxed position. The back rest is not too far back and you can see that it’s not a whole lot of space that we’re seeing here. Not that much of a difference versus the 7O itself. So maybe a really small trolley bag. In fact, I’d say soft bags, backpacks, something like that is what you can get in. So, if you do have a full house on board, doing a road trip with your luggage does get a little bit tricky, but that was something that we’ve seen as an issue with most cars in this space. Honestly, unless you really want that SUV look, MPVS will always do better on that front of giving you a better balance of both passenger space as well as luggage space afterwards. But of course, if you’re going to be using this car predominantly as a five-seater, you have the option of dropping down the third row of seats. And it is completely massive. It’s about 527 L. As for what Mahindra has described, this particular car does not have the parcel tray put in, but you do have these little slots over here that you can see in place for that along with a couple of baggage hooks. If you will be seated in the third row of seats, you will have a few amenities like AC vents along with blower speed control along with cup holders and stuff like that. Not a lot, but certainly reasonable for the seat that’s predominantly going to be used by kids and people maybe that you’re not too fond of. In fact, let’s do that. Speaking of people I’m not too fond of. Kamish, what’s up? here. Okay, I need to use your services to show actually one second. Hang on, Samir, why don’t you come this side? Let’s give the ladies and gentlemen a look at how it is that you get into the third row in the first place. Now, you do have the option of using a tumble forward feature. So, one pull there, drop down, and it goes ahead. But this is not something you’re going to be seeing on the driver’s side or rather the seat behind the driver. Now, let’s take a look at what kind of space you have for Kamesh in the back seat. So first let’s talk about the headroom that is available. So Kamehsh you are about 58 5’9. So that is with the back rest not set to the super upright position. So it is usable for adults but typical third row in that sense where if you come this side in fact why don’t I grab the phone from you. Take a look at this. You can see that under thigh support well the thigh has been socially distanced from the seat cushion below. And you can see that it’s not like we’ve left a another cavernous amount of space in the second row. So it is usable for adults, but it’s still something that you preferably use for the occasional trip here and there. Say for example, when you have relatives coming over and at that time you’re going to want to give that additional bit of space rather than sending them off in let’s say a cab or a big. Not a very nice feeling to do that is it you can hop on outside. Now let’s take a look at the space you have available along with some interesting features for the second row of seats. So this is also set to a nice and relaxed position. Kamesh, you can hop inside. So first of all, now that Kamehsh is seated in the back seat. Look at him. Such a safe person. The car’s not even moving, but he has his seat belt on. We can always learn something from Kamesh, can’t we? You know what? I actually do like you as a person. Here we have a sun shade that is being introduced for the comfort of rear seat passengers. Captain Obvious saying something like that. We also have these slots over here. Something we had seen in the XCV90 itself. Now Mahindra being the marketing geniuses that they are have called this bring your own device. Something you can use to basically put in a mount over here, mount an iPad, your phone, something like that. And fortunately, you do have these 65 watt type-C USB chargers so you can charge those devices as well. And as you can see, you have these rear AC vents available along with storage slot down below. Proper seat back pockets. So, plenty to keep back seat passengers comfortable and entertained. But interestingly, that’s not where they have stopped. So, Kamish wanted to go ahead and use the powered boss buttons that you see on this side. So if you are going to be a chauffeer driven owner, you can slide the seat back and forth as well as the back rest. So giving you an additional degree of flexibility, something that’s not so much focused on sevenseater comfort, but certainly for those who are chauffeur driven. And as you can see, the seat comfort over here is actually quite strong. The upholstery material is bang on. You also have a good amount of under eye support even for people who are maybe six feet tall, 6’1, 6’2 in that range. Maybe not so much for someone like me, but in that regard, it’s actually a great all round package. Let’s open up that armrest. Let’s see what we have in terms of storage options. So, your basic dual cup holders and what you can’t see, Samir, you can go down over there and show ladies and gentlemen, the blow type rear seat ventilation. So, three settings for that as And even though we have it running on the full fan speed, fan speed 3, it’s actually not that noisy. So not something you’ll need to overcome by playing some music or having a loud conversation inside the cabin. So it’s a great experience. Obviously working as well as a 5-seater can be that we’ve seen in the XV9E as well as the ice counterpart rather in the XV 7O. But you do have a third row of seats to just give you that additional sort of balance of practicality and flexibility for when you have more people to ferry around. But it’s still not the ideal space when it comes to the third row itself. Now let’s come to something that is definitely quite familiar. But certainly that doesn’t make it less remarkable. Some quick bits that must be mentioned before we hop into the front seat. Actually, you do have a spare tire available, but it’s placed in the underc carriage. So you’ll have to access it through this. But definitely handy to keep some WD40 around for those times because this stuff always works fantastic when the car is new, but then over time it just gets stuck. Speaking of somebody who has a car with that spare tire placement. And then we also come to the second row and take a look at this. It’s not just a storage slot as mentioned before, but it is a wireless phone charger that you have for the backseat occupants. More tech up front. Now, in the front seat, it is quite familiar because this is essentially the same thing that we’ve seen in the XCV90. But like I said, doesn’t make it any less remarkable. So, let’s get into it. First of all, let’s try and get you a look at the AR navigation feed that you can see right there. That flashing is obviously a function of the frame rate in the camera itself. But a lot of information you can see over there, including your speed, compass directions, and stuff that that you can essentially adjust through the touchcreen itself. It’s called the Vision X menu. I can see driver information including your ADAS settings and stuff like that. You’ll also get these fishbone navigation inputs, all of your ADAS display, speed warning, the track name that you’re playing. All of this stuff can be seen right here in your HUD. And it is a proper HUD like the one you can see right here. Now, let’s take a look at this. Interestingly, one thing I should mention is that this screen and this screen and that screen and this panoramic sunroof, all of it comes as standard even on the base variant that cost 19.95 lakh rupees at showroom. So definitely quite impressive on that front and this is otherwise a familiar affair. So you have this purple and other blend. I’m not that good with colors. You definitely need somebody with a little bit more insight on colors to give you exactly what paint shade this is. But you have the similar sort of interface. So I can see the menu controls right here. You have the haptic feedback as you navigate through the different options. So there’s focus mode. That’ll be quite minimalist in terms of what it is showing you. If I go back into the menu and drop down to drive assist, you’ll see all of your ADAS functions over here. And right now as I let off the brake, you can see that it’s also corresponding to the actions on the pedal box itself. Go back into menu, drop down into navigation. So you can see the onboard navigation display right here. You can also go down into analytics and get basic drive information. Don’t go by what you’re seeing right now as a indication of what kind of efficiency or anything that you’re going to be getting. Bear in mind this is a media drive. So stuff is quite brutal on the car in these scenarios. Then once we come to the steering itself, you’ll see that you have the control for the brake energy regeneration mode. So this is more regen, this is less. Press and hold this. So you get L auto that corresponds with the uh ADAS functions to manage your regen braking. You can see the steering stalks quite familiar. And once you click that you can also see the input from the side cameras. So here you have the other controls. You can see this gloss black finish so you can get a view of me while I’m recording this. So you have the adaptive cruise control, the menu function right here. All of this with haptic feedback, the distance control right here. You’ll also have the lane assist and the horn. That’s what it sounds like. very premium voice commands right here. There’s different modes for the touchcreen itself, call, pick up, and drop and stuff like that. And yes, the steering is of course adjustable for both rake as well as reach. Down here, you’ll see the controls for the powered seat controls. The driver does get three memory settings and you also have the ability to set up profiles on the touchcreen itself. So once you select a given profile, your HVAC settings, your mirror setting, seat, all of that will correspond with that. even your music preferences for that matter. So quite thoughtful in that regard, especially for people who have multiple drivers who use the same car in the family. Here you have the power window controls that look quite different compared to what you traditionally see in terms of switches. And you’ll see a host of controls down below over there, including that control for the boot release, which unfortunately is not a power tailgate. Not a massive miss, but could have been nice to have, especially because the XCV9 itself gets it. Here you have a button to switch off your displays in in case you’re getting too much of a stimulation going. Visual stimulation that is. You press this again, you have this haptic feedback. Sometimes it’s a little bit moody to use in my experience with the 90. Possibly they’ve resolved it with this. Here you have a view of the surround view camera. So if I tap 3D view right here, you can see what the car is like. pretty smooth and quite fluid to get a look at the color. The color itself doesn’t correspond to your exterior color visual thinking. Here we have the park controls. You can see auto park and all of those gimmicks that you have like the summon mode, auto park, all those cool things that you can definitely show off on social media. You get that right here. And you also have this for the AAS system. Down here you’ll see wireless phone charging slot. You’ll have two type-C chargers. Here you have the similar gear selector that we’ve seen before. So there’s no separate button. Just pull it back. It goes between drive, neutral, and of course this button here for park. You have an EPB, auto hold. Then you have this manual toggle for volume control, your HVAC itself. The main controls of course are coming in from the touchcreen itself. So even if I do hit the HVAC right here, your core controls still happening through the touchscreen including your seat ventilation that you get for both the front and well the controls for the front are over here. You do have rear seat ventilation as well. Your temperature control, all that stuff managed from here. You see this button for running through the different drive modes that you have. So there’s default, there is range mode, there is everyday mode and race mode, which is your sport mode. Little bit of storage over here. Two cup holders and this is a look at the key itself. So something that’s quite familiar. You have these buttons over here to manage your summon mode and other functions that you can manage from outside the car itself, including the parking support. Here you have some storage in between along with a thoughtful little slot to place the key. Now, let’s run into the touchcreen. The 12.3 in touchscreen is quite loaded and very fluid to use. I love what they’ve done with the software integration as well as the user experience itself. So, wireless Android Auto, Apple CarPlay, of course, things that are kind of a given. You have your ambient lighting controls that are available right here. If I were to go back into the menu, you can also see your auto park and even your groove me function. Something that makes the car sort of do a little song and dance. It’ll match up to what song you’re playing on your phone itself. So let’s say you have car play playing. If you have a song running, it’ll correspond to that when you come to the light show on the outside. Then once we come over here, you also have the option of the selfie. So you can see over here you have both camera with photographs as well as videos. If you were to take a video right now, let’s say video has started. I’ll just tap this again. Video saved. Come back down here. Go into gallery. You can see the options. It’ll be coming up over here. So, this right here. Now, going back, you can see that the touchcreen is absolutely fantastic to use. Very easy to run through and quite fluid. You also have drop- down menus for multiple things that you’ll see right here. RSA, SOS, all of those buttons that are integrated right here. And here you have the third screen where you can have YouTube music, YouTube, different streaming apps, shopping, all kinds of things that can be done. I’ve seen a lot of owners for the 90 itself using that as their kids entertainment screen. But combined with this selfie camera, you can also use it for stuff like taking your meetings and all. But you need to let me know in the comment section down below. Is that would you prefer using this screen for your meetings or would you rather just do it on your laptop or phone or whatever that may be. Summing up, you also have these. You don’t have a vanity mirror for the driver. There is one for the front passenger. You have sunglass holders right here. Sunroof controls and of course the 16 speaker Dolby enabled sound system that gives you a fantastic sound experience. I would like to give you an experience of what the songs and all sound like but of course if I play any kind of music I’m going to get a copyright strike. So can’t do that. So yeah XCV9s quite well loaded. And finally we come to the 150 L of frunk space available. And uh interestingly, while you do have to pull the bonnet release twice to open this up, there’s no separate latch to fiddle around with. So, makes it a little bit more easier to use a frunk here, you also have this additional bit of storage space underneath. So, you can use this for let’s say any kind of small soft bags that you have or if there’s something like a trip to the beach that you won’t want lot of grains of sand being tracked into the car, this kind of space definitely comes in quite handy. So, there you have it. This is the Mahindra XV 9S. It is a good, if not great, seven-seater SUV. Of course, drive impressions are going to be limited, but you can let me know what your thoughts are about this car in the comment section down below. Signing off.
The Mahindra XEV9S expands the INGLO born electric platform for a larger audience. In this video, we take a look at its tech, space, safety, style and capabilities as a 6-7 seater electric vehicle.
For more information on Mahindra XEV 9S: https://www.zigwheels.com/mahindra-cars/xev-9s
CHAPTERS:
0:00 Introduction
0:33 Quick walkaround
1:33 Design
5:07 Boot space
6:38 Third row seating
8:01 Second row seating and features
11:29 HUD
12:20 Instrument cluster
13:55 Steering mounted controls
14:22 Powered seats and other controls.
15:25 360 Degree camera and ADAS controls
15:57 Other features
18:17 Passenger screen
18:43 Summing up
19:08 Frunk space
Must Watch:
Mahindra XEV 9E vs BE6 Range Test: https://youtu.be/lYI5WF2D59g?si=8OUhDE39MuhQT046
Toyota Land Cruiser story: https://youtu.be/0_BY7W4EMu8?si=ZYedF_1ObtedbE5j
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