Avinya: before we all buy the hype, can we define the minimum bar that actually matters for our roads, grids, and climate?
I’ve watched a dozen “new EV brand” launches promise moonshots and deliver warmed-over compliance cars with a splashy UI. Avinya is being pitched as a clean-sheet, India-first EV platform. Great. But if it’s just another WLTP-range and 0-100 flex, what’s the point? Let’s set a community checklist now, before the PR cycle drowns out the practical questions.
What I want to see, measured independently in India-like conditions:
- Thermal management in real heat: 40-48°C ambient, cabin pre-cool at noon, repeated DC fast-charges back-to-back. Show charge curve stability, taper points, and pack temps. If it throttles after one session, it’s not “next-gen.”
- Grid tolerance: charging on low-voltage saggy supply and generator-backed outlets. Does it brownout the charger or gracefully adapt? What’s the minimum stable AC charge rate without throwing errors?
- Dust/monsoon hardening: cabin filters, motor/inverter sealing, door harness grommets. How does the HVAC maintain airflow after 5,000 km of dust and a week of rain? Publish IP ratings and actual dust ingress tests.
- Real stop-go efficiency: kWh/100 km at 25-35 km/h average with AC set to 22-24°C, 2-4 occupants, mixed flyovers. I don’t care about highway hypermiles; give me congestion numbers.
- Battery chemistry transparency: is base trim LFP or sodium-ion? If sodium-ion enters the lineup, we need cycle life, fast-charge limits, and weight penalties up front. Don’t hide behind “proprietary blend.” Publish specific energy and warranted SOH curve.
- Charge-port sanity: CCS2 is obvious, but does AC charging do 3-phase 11-22 kW out of the box? Apartment dwellers with 3-phase should not be stuck at 3.3-7.4 kW in 2025.
- V2H/V2L that actually works: continuous 2-3 kW at 230 V with proper islanding and RCD protection, not a marketing slide. Backup for outages is a real use case here.
- Brake and suspension tuning for broken tarmac: regen handoff over rough surfaces, brake feel with dusty pads, and shock durability on unpaved stretches. We’ve all driven EVs that get skittish over corrugations when regen grabs; fix it.
- Software independence: if they omit CarPlay/Android Auto, what’s the offline nav fallback with live traffic? What’s the policy on app-gating basics like climate or charging timers behind logins/cloud?
- OTA policy and rollback: what’s user control over updates, ability to defer, and a guaranteed rollback path if an update breaks range or features?
- Right to repair basics: HV service disconnect locations, publicly available torque specs, and parts availability timelines. At least publish a non-paywalled emergency response and service primer.
- Warranty triggers in hot climates: clear SoH thresholds, replacement criteria, and how the BMS counts “fast charges” and “DC sessions.” No games with telemetry redefining “misuse.”
- Safety beyond star-chasing: pedestrian warning at low speeds that isn’t obnoxious, proper seat-belt anchorage geometry with those lounge-y interiors, and real-world airbag deployment data once available.
Two bigger, probably uncomfortable questions:
- Mixed-chemistry or modular packs: Is anyone brave enough to ship a pack combining LFP for bulk energy with sodium-ion for fast-charge/heat resilience, or at least modularize so fleets can pick chemistries per region? If not, why not? Cooling and BMS complexity isn’t a deal-breaker in 2025.
- Public charge-curve disclosure: Will Avinya publish official charge curves vs. SoC and pack temp, not just “10-80% in X minutes” at an ideal station? Without that, the spec sheet is noise.
If Avinya nails even half of this, it could be the first mass-market EV here that’s engineered for our realities rather than imported assumptions. If not, it’s yet another pretty demo car that melts at the first summer fast charge.
What else should be on this checklist, and who’s up for designing a community test protocol we can apply on day one? I’ll trust this car when the data says I should-not before.