Hyundai Creta Electric long term review, 6,000km report

There’s nothing like an outsider’s view to give you some much-needed perspective on things. Sure, we car reviewers have the benefit and privilege of driving every car on the market to form a wholesome opinion, but sometimes, caught up in our little bubble of 0-100 acceleration times, Global NCAP crash test ratings and on-limit steering feel, we might miss the forest for the trees.

Over this Diwali break, I got to spend some long-overdue time with many friends and loved ones, and to share the Creta Electric with them. Their feedback was invaluable and, at times, eye opening. Not that I had to ask for their opinion at all; most people had something to say within five minutes of being introduced to it.

Effectively kept the firework smoke out of the cabin through the festive week.

My mother, who is my most regular passenger, knows her way around the car by now. She has learnt that, after a drive, the front passenger door won’t unlock just by tugging at the handle. It has to be manually unlocked first; a basic and surprisingly overlooked feature in some other cars. She, a senior citizen, also knows the exact ‘seat before feet’ technique to enter the high-set car without too much difficulty. And having seen it since it joined the fleet, has rightly pointed out how dirty the white interior has gotten in four months.

Cream-coloured, recycled plastic upholstery starting to turn brown.

Among my friends, the less car savvy recognised it as a Creta first, and only later realised it was electric. The silence gave it away before the green number plate did. I even showed it to a few who were considering their first EV and shopping in this very price range, and the reactions were mixed. I tried to extol its virtues of unbelievably good efficiency, loads of features, spacious cabin, comfy ride, glitch-free running and excellent sound system – the things that I love about it. But most of my buying friends had already stopped at the looks.

No hooks to hang small bags in otherwise useful boot; just these bungee strap tethers.

It wasn’t that it looked too much like a Creta, but rather that it didn’t look special enough for them at this price. The sense I got was that to a first-time SUV-buying family, a Creta looks great. But for someone spending Rs 26 lakh on their second or third car, it looks too ordinary. For similar reasons, some found the interior too plasticky, despite my reviewer brain assuring them that the ergonomics were good and the storage spaces thoughtful. Forest; trees.

What none could deny, though, was just how comfy it was, and as I cranked the volume up on the Bose sound system, they duly forgot their complaints and grooved along to the music. The takeaway here is that there’s more to a car than the sum of its parts, and personal preference always has a part to play. As someone who’s learnt to be objective with cars, I tend to look past the superficial and focus on the functional, which is why I absolutely love the Creta, and especially the Creta Electric. ICE or EV, it’s a car that just works.