From Reva to G-Wiz - The ElectriCity Car’s Triumphant Journey

Last week, one of my colleagues at work, excitedly left early from work to test drive a mini-marvel. A environmentally friendly marvel called GWiz. Over the last few months we have pondered over making our business environment friendly. In fact we have even tested battery charged delivery vans for London. Although, it is a perfect option for driving around the busy streets in London and for avoiding hefty congestion charges, it didn’t work out. So, it came as no surprise to see Will, who reviewed our electric van trial, test drive a mini electric car for personal use.

Back in 2004, when I first arrived in the UK, the mainstream media in the UK was gung-ho about the new automobile marvel Gibbs Aquada. For people who haven’t heard of it, Aquada is an Amphicar just like the one you would have seen in the movie, The Spy Who Loved Me. With a price tag of £150, 000, it was an invention which only James Bond and the British Industry’s flamboyant poster boy, Richard Branson could afford. In fact, the Virgin Boss was the first to drive and sail an Aquada and even broke a record of crossing the English channel in one hour forty minutes, which prompted Aquada to the mainstream media. True that people drive much expensive cars than Aquada, including the Bentleys, Lambhorghinis, Bugatis, Ferarris etc. But Gibbs Aquada, one of the promising inventions of the decade seems to be on a similar path as the Sinclair C5. In both cases, the hype died down quickly. What a commercial disaster for a promising invention!

Around the same time as Aquada occupied pages and slots in the media, I was pleasantly surprised to see Reva - one of the unseen icons of Indian Automobile Industry plying on the busy streets leading to Headingley in Leeds. Soon, I found out that Maini Group, the manufacturers of Reva had entered into a marketing arrangement with Leeds based importer Going Green. Never did it occur to me that Reva would slowly rise to be one of the most preferred envirofriendly vehicles in the UK, well in London atleast.

Back in 2001, Maini Group, which everyone in Bangalore knew as a company that was into mining, importing and trading granites, announced that it was entering the automobile market. However, many automobile experts failed to take notice of the venture. In fact, very few even knew that the Group had spent almost seven years towards Research and Development of the car with its American Partner, AEV LLC. Nevertheless, Reva with its vibrant colours was a pleasant sight on the busy Bangalore streets. As far as I can recollect, Reva was modestly priced at around £2000-2500, in a similar bracket as the ever so popular Indian snall car Maruti 800.

At that point of time, Indian automobile market, was still averse to foreign manufacturers and there were only a handful of western cars on Indian roads. With a decent price tag, Maruti was everyone’s first preference. But with the introduction of Reva, Maini Group anticipated to break into a market, otherwise dominated by Maruti. Although it failed to capture the Indian consumers’ heart, it did make a mark on a much lucrative market - Europe. Off late, the Indian Automobile manufacturers seem to be hitting well in the international market. Be it Tata Indica’s rebranding as CityRover in the UK or Mahindra Scorpio’s presence in some parts of Europe and the US, manufacturers are creating a brand internationally. The Tata Group and the Mahindra Group are exploring acquisition options and have expressed their interest in buying out Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford. But there is one car from a much smaller stable, making the headlines at the moment while the bigger companies battle it out in the Board room.

Any similarities??? Way to go Reva…sad that we have very few Indian customers!