There’s no simpler way to compare one car’s performance to another than with a head-to-head quarter-mile race. Following the shootout between the newest crop of midsize SUVs, in this edition of Autocar India’s quarter-mile racing series, we’ve brought together three premium electric SUVs including the Tata Harrier EV, the Mahindra XEV 9e and the Vinfast VF7. Let’s find out which one here is the quickest down the drag strip.
Round 1: Tata Harrier EV vs Mahindra XEV 9e
Between these two homegrown EVs, the Harrier EV has an advantage for not only being more powerful, but it also has all-wheel drive as opposed to XEV 9e’s rear-wheel drive setup. Both SUVs are heavy-weights, but the Mahindra has an advantage for being 134kg lighter. On whose favour will the scales tip? Let’s find out.
The Harrier EV’s all-wheel drive system gives it a clear advantage in this race, giving it a comfortable win in Race 1 by a big margin of over seven tenths. Despite not being able to turn off traction control, the grip from the AWD system is enough for it to gap the Mahindra. Race 2 is a repeat, but the Mahindra does manage to close the gap, losing by half a second this time around.
Round 2: Tata Harrier EV vs Vinfast VF 7
After winning the home-grown battle, the Harrier EV is lined up against another similarly powered, similarly priced and AWD-equipped EV in the form of the Vietnamese Vinfast VF7. This time, however, the Harrier EV is on the back foot – it’s less powerful, weighs more and the advantage of all-wheel drive has been wiped away.
The Vinfast does allow you to turn traction control off, which results in a much better launch than the Harrier EV. In Race 1, both SUVs are neck-and-neck off the line, but the VF7 soon builds a lead and manages to maintain it all the way till the finish, crossing the line four tenths faster than the Tata. The Harrier EV does manage to narrow the gap in Race 2, but the advantage the VF7 gains at launch is hard for the Tata to overcome, and it loses out by 0.29sec.
Autocar India’s testing standards
Before we conduct our performance tests, we check and maintain tyre pressures based on the manufacturer’s recommendation and ensure the car has a full tank of fuel. The car is then tested in a controlled environment and the data is collected via highly accurate GPS-based timing equipment.
With inputs from Saptarshi Mondal
Uday Singh
Dipan Sur
Glenn Noronha
