Pratap Bose shares images from the development of the Tata Sierra Electric Concept

It’s exciting times for the Electric Mobility division of Tata Motors. Auto Expo 2020 was a really good show for the company with some of the expected showcases and a few surprises too. In particular, Tata unveiled the Sierra electric concept at the expo that led to quite a stir in the automobile world.

The Tata Sierra concept bore the iconic design elements of the original Sierra with a modern twist. Pratap Bose, Vice President – Global Design, Tata Motors, recently shared some images taken during the development for the Sierra electric concept.

The Sierra is based on Tata’s IMPACT 2.0 design philosophy and is built on the ALFA platform (the base of the Altroz and the Rhino-inspired HBX SUV). Though it seems like a no-brainer to be put into production, there is no green-light to the project yet.

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The Sierra electric concept is more of a study than some of the previous cars because this is not even a program yet in the company. I’m going to try with every bone in my body to make this into a production product. But true to what we’ve been showing since the Nexon concept (Auto Expo 2014), we want to keep as much of the (concept) car. I mean we don’t have an intention to produce it, it was literally a concept study (from the UK Design Studio), but apart from a few ‘concept element,’ most of the size, dimensions, wheel and tire size – it’s all very real. We’ve showcased this sliding door that will give us some options to retain the rear glass enclosure.

Pratap Bose, Vice President – Global Design, Tata Motors, talking to ElectricVehicleWeb.in on 5 February 2020.

Tata Motors will be looking to retain most of the design elements from the concept on the production car as the reception to the presentation has been highly positive. However pieces like the lounge seats and the flora will surely not be carried over. The concept has sliding doors to accommodate the rear doors with the glass house in tact but we don’t know how closely this will be replicated in the production car, though Bose is viewing a lengthened sun roof and practical door rails as ways to retain this signature feature and still meet requirements like crash safety and cost target.

The Sierra concept finally serves as a design guidebook for future Tata SUVs. Elements like the individual headlight modules, flush (and deployable) door handles and the air curtains over the front wheel arches are the bits expected in the future design language of Tata vehicles.

[Image source: Twitter.com]