Handling wise, use of a monocoque chassis helps the XUV to keep body roll to a minimum, and the inclusion of Bosch’s latest ESP 9 is major boon too. This along with that stiff sporty reworked suspension meant the XUV felt perfectly comfortable around the bends on Mahindra’s test-track. The steering felt communicative and the car wasn’t all over the place, even at high speeds. I couldn’t really get a handle on how the XUV would react to bumpy roads because we were on the track, but if driving across the rumble-strips was any indication it should do just fine, although you’ll have to wait for our roadtest for a more comprehensive lowdown on that.
The ABS equipped discs make for progressive braking, and the car doesn’t swivel about too much under hard braking either. The XUV is even equipped with brake energy regeneration that recovers energy that would otherwise be dissipated and directs it towards charging the battery instead. The car also comes equipped with 6 airbags and hill hold and hill descent control, along with a hydraulic strut-equipped bonnet. Mahindra even claim improved fuel efficiency by 1km/l over the older XUV 500, but again we can’t confirm this until we test the car ourselves.
The top-end manual All-Wheel Drive W10 we drove costs Rs 18.59 lakh on-road Pune. At this price point, the XUV 500 has taken another step towards bringing the luxury of a traditional SUV at an attractive price to the Indian market in the form of a pretty decent car too, and you can only commend Mahindra for that.
