Hindustan Ambassador EV costs only Rs. 1 per km: Cheaper than running a 2 wheeler [Video]

The future of mobility is said to be driven by electric vehicles. While the electric vehicles have become popular in many foreign countries, the idea is still warming up in the Indian market and manufacturers have already started launching their EV products in the market. While it may be quite expensive to buy a new electric vehicle in India, there are quite a few handfuls of companies who are developing electric kits that can be retrofitted in the regular vehicles and transform them completely. Here is one such vehicle but it is not any other car, it is the iconic Hindustan Ambassador with an electric powertrain. Here are all the details.

The vehicle has been developed by a team of youngsters at He-Man Auto Robopark Pvt Ltd located in Kerala’s Angamaly according to Manorama English. The team bought an old Ambassador and several other components to transform it completely. To start with, the engine of the car was removed completely and a new electric motor has been installed. Powering the electric motor is a pack of lead-acid battery that has been positioned in the boot of the vehicle. Additional batteries have been placed in the engine bay too.


The new electric motor develops a maximum power of 53 Bhp and peak torque of 275 Nm. There are 22 batteries in total and they form a 20kW source. The Ambassador EV can do up to 120 km/h and it is pretty quick too. According to the team who made it, it can achieve 60 km/h in just 12 seconds.
The massive 275 Nm of torque comes at zero RPM, which is a massive advantage for the car. This Ambassador can pull heavy loads and showing that there is a video of it pulling a heavy truck. According to the video, the Ambassador pulled a 14.5 metric ton truck. The video says that the truck weighs 6.5 metric tons and it has a load of 8 metric ton. The Ambassador can be seen pulling it with ease through a good distance.




With a full charge, it can do 100 km and the running cost comes to only Re 1 per km. The battery pack takes about 8 hours to charge completely but there is no quick charging system as of now. The team is also working on the lithium-ion battery pack, which they will use in future vehicles. The team is currently working to get approvals from ARAI and make the kits for more cars. There is a screen inside the Ambassador that shows the vehicle’s range, battery status, and several other information. It also gets a regenerative braking system that charges the battery and the screen shows exactly by how much.


The total cost of the conversion is about Rs 6 lakhs, which is the total expenditure incurred by the team. However, this is a prototype version and the final product will cost less. There is no timeline given about the launch of the transformation kits of the other cars but it should be available in the future.