Meet the Maruti 800 ‘Electric Car’ that makes more torque than a Toyota Fortuner [Video]

This little Maruti 800 electric car makes 378 Nm of torque right from idle. Well, to put things into perspective, that’s a full 133 Nm more than the peak torque rating of the Toyota Fortuner Petrol (245 Nm). And obviously with so much torque under the hood, the Maruti 800 Electric is a supremely fun to drive car. But how was it built? Well, the video below will tell you everything you need to know. Meet Hemank Dabhade of Pune, the man who converted a regular Maruti 800 into an electric car that’s mega fun to drive. The Maruti 800 was bought second-hand, at just Rs. 75,000. Over to the video now.

As the video indicates, the Maruti 800 Electric is a rear wheel driven car, which is a big departure from the original, which used a front wheel drive layout. The petrol engine of the original Maruti 800 was dumped, and the donor car didn’t need any major work to its body work or suspension as they were in good condition. After dumping the petrol engine, a 19 KW electric motor with a Curtis SE controller was installed, and this motor drives the rear wheels of the car. The rear axle was sourced from a scrap yard.

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The constant torque output from this motor is 54 Nm but it can be pushed to 70 Nm for a few seconds if required. The motor is paired with a 7:1 stepdown transmission system that multiplies the torque. At the wheels, it generates a maximum of 378 Nm of torque, which is tremendous for a car that weighs under 800 kilograms. It’s this combination of high torque right off idle and the light weight that makes the Maruti 800 Electric such a fun-to-drive car.

Juicing the electric motor is a stack of 16 batteries: 9 of them are placed in the engine bay while the remaining 7 are placed under the front seats. This allows a low centre of gravity. The battery pack allows it to go for 120 km on a single charge with the top speed of 80 to 85 km/h. The batteries on this car are charged through a twin charger set-up, and it takes about 4 to 4.5 hours to completely charge the car. There is no provision of fast charging.

The Maruti 800 Electric runs a single speed automatic transmission and gets regenerative braking. The regenerative brake force is intentionally set high so that the car slows down rapidly when the throttle is let off. Meanwhile, here is another video that shows the Maruti 800 Electric in action,

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