Back to Windsor – an exciting and unique product in its design and pricing structure. With this new CUV, MG Motors hopes to disrupt the EV segment with a great VFM product and a new structure regarding battery ownership. This makes the initial acquisition price much more palatable to the Indian consumer and takes care of one of the major barriers to the large-scale adoption of EVs in India. MG is offering two options to the buyer – he/she can either choose to buy the car with the battery at three attractive price points (though the variants' names are a bit vague/confusing) or can buy the car without the battery and take a subscription of the battery throughout the fixed tenure. In the second option, there is no risk associated with any issues that may arise with the battery, though MG is offering an unlimited km/lifetime warranty for the first owner of the Windsor. I believe this is a massive benefit to the buyer who doesn't want the headache of paying higher upfront for the battery but also insulates himself/herself from potential damages.

The subscription options provided by 4 select third-party financing companies require you to pay anywhere between Rs. 3.5 to Rs. 5.8 per km considering a minimum mileage of 1500 km per month (apart from one vendor which charges you an up-front deposit but without a minimum usage). Charging costs will be over and above the battery rental cost, though this is waived off by MG in case you use a public charger. However, technically, this is not Battery-as-a-Service in the truest sense but more like taking a battery on rent or loan. Tata Motors is also evaluating the feasibility of offering a BaaS model for some of its models which will further bring down the ex-showroom prices benefitting new buyers. If this move from MG succeeds, which I believe will, you could see more OEMs entering this relatively unexplored segment.

Globally, BaaS is used in cases wherein the battery is offered as a service at a cost to the car buyer with the option of swapping a depleted battery with a fully charged one at designated swapping stations. Compared to the traditional charging methods, this offers better convenience and speed to the EV user in addition to significantly reducing the upfront costs as the battery is the single most expensive component in an electric vehicle. The BaaS model has always been around for many years, though the concept has evolved as EV uptake levels rose sharply in mature markets led by players such as Tesla in the US and BYD in China. European countries such as Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands are also major markets for the BaaS model. Some of the notable examples of successful BaaS implementations around the world include NIO (China), Gogoro (Taiwan), Swobbee (Germany), and Ample (USA).