Morris Garage's ZS EV to launch early next year with internet connectivity

Focussing on connected electric vehicles, UK-based Morris Garage (MG) is set to launch an all-new electric internet car in the Indian market. The next-gen ZS EV is built on the company's i-Smart EV 2.0 platform to offer an advanced and connected interface. The MG ZS EV that will be unveiled on December 5 is likely to go on sale early next year. It will be assembled at the company's manufacturing plant at Halol in Gujrat. The company has already set up 10 fast charging stations across five cities including Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Ahmedabad.

Addressing challenges that an electric vehicle is likely to face, the MG ZS EV will provide real-time insights such as vehicle charging information and range, battery charge less alarm (when less than 30 per cent), CO2 emission saved and 360 Spider for finding charging stations when the remaining range is less than 50 kms. The maps and navigation solution from TomTom will be pre-embedded in the car, helping users navigate to the nearby charging station. It will also provide access to relevant information such as the type of charger (DC/AC) and connector (CCS2, ChadeMO) available. The same information will be accessible to the user on the i-SMART EV 2.0 mobile app as well.

Adding to the connected, smart experience, the MG ZS EV will also have a cloud-enabled, AI-based Voice Assistant powered by Nuance Communications, developed for the Indian market to understand Indian accent. The voice assistant will be able to understand about 100 voice commands to control various features and functions of the vehicle including "Open the Sunroof" and "Find me the nearest charging station". The car owner will be able to access car's information such as the current location, tire pressure and carry out actions such as vehicle scanning to check pre-defined parameters, lock/unlock the vehicle remotely, security alert, set geofencing, over-speed alert, create travel plan and push to vehicle and more from the i-SMART EV 2.0 mobile application. The i-SMART EV 2.0 platform will come with a premium Gaana account as well as AccuWeather app. Addressing the concern about data security, MG Motor says that the consumer data will be stored securely in MG's Cloud within the country, which is powered by Microsoft Azure.

The MG ZS EV features a 6-core processor and is 5G ready. It will have an embedded Machine to Machine (M2M) eSIM. According to MG, it will be Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPV6) and 5G ready. It has been developed in association with Unlimit (A Reliance ADAG company) and is based on Cisco's Jasper platform, with Airtel as the telecom partner. Claiming to be the segment-first, along with the embedded SIM, the system can also be connected with an external Wi-Fi connection. This feature will allow buyers to seamlessly connect the car to their home network or even mobile hotspot. This feature will allow users to derive maximum internet speed for the operation of the infotainment system.

Aiming to design a truly connected car, this electric vehicle will receive over-the-air updates that include real-time software updates of the infotainment system at regular intervals directly without the customer having to visit the service centre for updates.

MG entered the Indian market in 2017 and launched MG Hector in June this year.

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