Sep 10, 2015

Mirror! Mirror!

Last 8 months have been very interesting... Life lived and travelled in a different way. A reflection of the past gave me amazing insights at how blessed we have been all the way... New things, events and opportunities coming our way...

Last week we were on a long awaited monsoon bike ride to Pune. Somehow that has been our way of connecting back with nature... The Ghats are very inviting and the old highway has become even more safe and open thanks to all the other traffic speeding over the expressway. Open lush green fields, open roads and milestones...


Travelling has been our passion and it helps connect us better in many ways than one. This ride seemed to offer more than just connection with each other. 

Friends with common interest are fun to be around with. We do not meet often but can strike the right cord instantly.  Kamlesh, is one such friend we met. A man of few words ;) and deeper thoughts... :) Loves his EV and is enthusiastic about life and its journeys. 

Interestingly, met a lot of enthusiastic people and shared lots of joy and reasoning about life, for life. :) The visit to the Ananda Yoga retreat was enlightening. Meeting Dharana, a well read and enriched soul, was inspiring.

To my surprise I even connected with a different creature at the retreat. It was not me who took the first step of course. I have never been fond of dogs but this one was so giving that I gave in too. :). She has been there at the retreat from the time of its creation. "Mamma" as she is called, approached us the first day, took in our smell, and as usual my instinct was to avoid. She would wag its tails (like any other) showing its approval of us being around, lead us to the places / rooms / halls we were heading towards. Guard / clear our path of the crawling creatures. Lead us to our rooms and stay out for sometime till she knew we were settled for the night.
One evening on a trek, I was falling behind from the group... she stopped and started walking next to me. She accompanied me to the walks in the morning and even sat beside on a hill side. She was so expressive in her ways and actions but I never patted her back. One morning we were running towards the reception and she sensed harm... she pushed us back and ran ahead to only find that she had won over us. :)

The trip on the way back was like a fantasy. We had a bright blue sky and the blue Enfield with us on our journey back home. Raphae was brilliant in his reflexes, navigating our way back home. On this trip there was no bike-lag after we were back to the city of lights. The big contrast of living in a metro, and living in a valley struck us when we inhaled the polluted air at Panvel. Over all a great fulfilled experience.

Link to 'Ride for Joy': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46JENEx7sao

This experience reminds me of the Rumi Quote, it says:
"You have forgotten the One, who does not care for ownership,
who doesn't try to turn a profit from every human exchange."







Jan 18, 2015

Drive More! Earn More! Part 2

Thanks to Mahindra for shifting their Sakinaka location to Chunabhatti, we saw a different part of Mumbai and had a great, fun filled experience. 

We went to Chunabhatti, then to Lohar Chawl and back. 
Travelled by car to the service station, then by Rickshaw and train to Masjid Bandar. 
Returned by train and double decker bus. It was the two of us and to and fro costed us - 94Rs.

Rickshaw - 28 INR
Masjid Bandar 2 tickets - 22 INR (11/person)
Return Train tickets to Kurla - 20 INR
Double Decker tickets - 24 INR (12/person) 

One interesting discovery was that if we had travelled the same distance in our E2O it would have been even more cost effective and less time consuming. 

We would have made it back with at least 40% charge remaining. 
Total Distance to the exact location 48 Kms + Airconditioning and traffic + roaming around the by-lanes = 6o units battery consumed. ;)

Map by road Google Map

Mahindra Reva E2O gives us 0.50 paise per unit which means 50 INR per 100 units of charge. So it would have costed us 30 Rs for the 60 units for both of us... Even if we went all the way and consumed all of the charged units we would still be at an advantage.. Currently and for the next 2 yrs,   its all free for us anyway, since Mahindra pays us back.

Translating that score.. we can travel anywhere in Mumbai around 100 km range for 50 Rs... thats mind-blowing!


So far we have gone 4200+ kms and saved around 23000 INR yearly cost of petrol if we were to drive a petrol vehicle giving us average 14 km /Ltr @ 75INR / Ltr... It just gets better each day!

Drive More! Earn More! Part 1

Oh! what an amazing Sunday it has been so far!

After having done all that we 'needed' to, we felt like we deserved a long drive on a Sunday sunny morning when the roads are not too crowded, to go to a place which we haven't discovered completely..
Distance Travelled: GoogleMap

So the destination - Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus from the Eastern Free Way which takes us around Mumbai.

To V.T via the freeway :)
We started off from a place close to our home at 50% DTE (distance to Empty)... Beautiful roads, very less traffic and an interesting companion who is also the navigator between the two of us. Mumbai is vast and there is always something more to see and do. :)

Driving has never been so much fun. Saw the un-ventured Mazgaon Docks, the mills and the central side of Mumbai. Never before reached Victoria Terminus station in less than 40 mins. This is a much better road to travel to South Mumbai. The air is much cleaner too. There is so much to discover about Mumbai and also about the E2O.

At a signal away from home.

Started with 50 % DTE
The total distance travelled was 48kms. (to and fro)
Reached home with 18% DTE
Regenerated - 16 kms worth of battery life


AMAZING!


The car started showing signs of low battery, the navigation system had red lights blinking, the dashboard gear changed to "E" - Empty and I could no longer go into boost mode. We were well prepared so there was no range anxiety.

Ideally we would have kind of dragged the car home with 2% battery left or used 'Revive' but regenerative breaking had some surprises to offer. The car doesn't cease to amaze us. Its gives us a high.

The next trip to the same place will surely be to discover the monorail. These facilities have made these places more reachable and exciting than before.

Jan 15, 2015

Small Important Features

Exactly a year after we owned the E2O, we got a call from Mahindra wanting to talk about how our e2o has become just like us... It was a pleasure going down the memory lanes and talking about how the car has integrated into our lifestyle so well..

I realised that there are many subtle features that the car has, those that we use on a daily basis but don't register them as equally important but Mahindra has put in that effort to make the car as Child-Safe as possible.

To start with - when the car is plugged in, it completely shuts down and it will not move or start, that way one will never be able to make a careless mistake and move ahead with the car without unplugging.

On startup - we need to authenticate with the key, that way no one can just press the button and accelerate. Moreover, its also mandatory to put the gear in Neutral - N and only then there can be any movement from acceleration upon change of gear. Its again a cool Child-Safe feature.


DVD / CD feature can only be used if the car is not in motion. It doesn't work in Forward / Boost or Reverse gear mode.

It has ELR (Emergency locking retractors) belts for the front seat riders which locks it self on impact or sudden braking.

The rear view mirror has a locking mechanism which locks the mirror in place. The set position does not keep moving as a result of cleaning or sorts..

And m sure there are many more features that we haven't discovered yet. :)