20 Groundbreaking Features Of Mahindra XEV 9e, BE 6e

1. Brake-By-Wire With Regeneration To Improve Range

The new XEV 9e and BE 6e employ a new brake by wire system that Mahindra claim can apply the brakes in just 200 milliseconds compared to 400 milliseconds in a conventional ICE-powered car. The brake by wire system in the latest Mahindra EVs primarily uses the electric motor to brake and regenerate the energy. The conventional brake rotors only come into play for quick deceleration.

Mahindra claim the regenerative braking system provided by the brake by wire system helps improve the range, or efficiency, by 18% in real-word driving conditions. In essence, the regenerative braking system converts kinetic energy into electricity when you lift your foot off the accelerator. This electricity is then stored in the battery, extending the vehicle’s range.

The brake by wire technology also allows for single-pedal driving, which essentially means the driver can control both acceleration and deceleration using only the accelerator pedal.

2. Triple Screen Dashboard Layout

Mahindra are calling the triple screen layout a 43.3-inch Cinemascope, but it is essentially 3 screens integrated within a single glass panel. There are some unmissable bezels between them. But the setup allows the front passenger to enjoy some videos and access vehicle details without having to lean over towards the centre. The centre screen is mainly for infotainment and some vehicle settings such as AC and mirrors. The driver’s instrument cluster is not a touchscreen and it shows mostly driver-centre features and information. The screens invading our space is a concern but for what it’s worth, this is certainly an eye-catching feature.

Even the rear seat passengers get mounting points to add a dock for mounting tables behind the front seats. You can then use these with the official accessory to bring the total count of screens in the cabin to 5. That’s an average of one per occupant.

3. Software-Defined Vehicle (SDV)

Think of this new car as a computer. If you are more than 30 or 40 years old, then you may have seen the BIOS screen flash when turning on your computer or laptop. The BIOS or Basic Input Output System is the layer that interacts with all the hardware underneath. The BIOS also communicates with the operating system, which could be like DOS. Then, with a graphic user interface layer, you get the Windows 95, for instance. Windows 95 enables you to install applications, such as MS Word, on top of the OS layer to add functionality to the computer. These applications may perform some functions locally but they may also need to connect to the cloud for certain processing needs.

Now, let’s bring this analogy to the new-age Mahindra electric vehicles.

The hardware layer here is all the electrically or electronically operated interior and exterior features such as power seats, infotainment, interior and exterior lighting, etc. On top of this, the car has a platform software, which is the BIOS equivalent. Next, we have the middleware layer of Blackberry QNX, which would be the DOS equivalent in our analogy. Next, the Win95 equivalent layer would be the Android Automotive. Do not confuse this with Android Auto, which only works with the infotainment system. The Android Automotive is a full-blown operating system for cars and a whole lot more capable than the basic Android Auto.

Just like a typical Android Platform, their Automotive open-source platform allows developers to write applications to enhance the functionality of the vehicles. These applications can be seen as running MS Word on Windows 95. Then, the application interacts with Mahindra AI stack to determine, which tasks it can perform locally and which ones need the cloud processing. For that, they have the cloud infrastructure.

All of this runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon Cockpit SoC, which houses CPU, GPU and NPU, enabling Mahindra to offer some local AI capabilities. All of this is top-of-the-line equipment and software and this kind of a hardware and software stack is seen for the first time on a car in India. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what we call a software-defined vehicle or an SDV.

The SDV architecture allows the manufacturer to improve the vehicle through future software updates. When even the suspension, braking and ADAS fall under the scope of OTA (over-the-air updates). And with the Android Automotive platform, we can expect the developer community to build applications for the AA-compatible cars. As a customer, you can just install these apps and gain new functionalities even without the manufacturer intervention.

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