Mahindra BE 6 vs MG Windsor EV: Which Is Better for Highway Driving in India

This is a comparison I wanted to do for a while, mostly because the BE 6 and Windsor EV are aimed at completely different buyers but are often shortlisted together by people in the ₹17-22 lakh on-road bracket. They feel different the moment you sit in them. The question I wanted to answer wasn't "which is faster" or "which has better infotainment" — it was: which one would I rather drive 800 km on Indian highways?

The cars on test

• Mahindra BE 6 Pack 3 with 79 kWh battery. ARAI 682 km. Ex-showroom ₹26.90 lakh, on-road around ₹30 lakh in Maharashtra after subsidies.
• MG Windsor EV Excite Pro with 38 kWh battery. ARAI 332 km. Ex-showroom ₹15.99 lakh + ₹3.5 per km battery rental, on-road around ₹18 lakh effective.

So the BE 6 is roughly 60% more expensive on-road. That gap matters, but the question is whether the highway experience justifies it.

The route

Mumbai (Lower Parel) to Goa (Calangute) and back via NH-66. Total 850 km. We started both cars at 100% charge, drove the same speed (cruise control set at 95 kmph), AC at 22°C, two adults plus one bag each. We took the same charging stops on the way down so the comparison is apples-to-apples on the way up.

Range, charging, and the practical reality

Down leg, Mumbai to Goa, 580 km:

• BE 6: arrived Goa with 24% battery remaining, did one stop at Chiplun for 22 minutes (10% to 80% on a 240 kW charger). Real-world ~510 km on the down leg with one fast top-up.
• Windsor: needed two stops — Khopoli (38% to 85% in 35 min) and Sawantwadi (12% to 85% in 38 min). Real-world about 250 km between stops on the highway. Total stopped time: 73 minutes vs the BE 6's 22.

An hour of extra charging time over a 580 km drive is real. If you're doing this trip once a year, it's not a big deal. If you're doing it monthly, it absolutely is.

How they actually drive on a highway

The BE 6 feels like a proper highway car. Suspension absorbs broken patches without unsettling the body. At 100 kmph it feels planted; at 130 kmph (which it does, on the rare empty stretches) it still feels composed. Ride is firm-ish but never crashy. Cabin noise at highway speeds is properly low — I had a phone call at 110 kmph and the other person didn't realise I was driving.

The Windsor feels more city-tuned. Suspension is softer, which means it floats a bit on undulating sections of the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. Highway crosswinds (the kind you get on the Mhasla bypass) shift the car more than the BE 6. Cabin noise at 95 kmph is fine; above 105 kmph the wind noise around the A-pillar gets noticeable. None of this makes the Windsor unpleasant. It just doesn't feel as composed at speed.

The seats. Don't underestimate the seats.

This is where the Windsor has a genuinely surprising win. The reclining rear seats — the unique-selling-point feature MG kept advertising — are actually fantastic on a long drive. The rear passenger spent half the trip semi-reclined, watching Netflix on the rear screen, completely chill. The BE 6's rear is fine. Comfortable, well-bolstered, but feels like a normal car. The Windsor's rear feels like a business class shuttle.

Front seats: BE 6 wins. Better thigh support, better lumbar adjustment, ventilated. The Windsor's driver seat is fine for 2 hours. After 3 hours, my back started complaining. The BE 6 driver seat held up to 5 hours without protest.

The instrumentation difference

The BE 6 has a proper heads-up display, twin 12.3-inch screens, and the Sony 16-speaker setup. It's flashy. The Windsor has a single 15.6-inch portrait screen and a much simpler dash. Both work fine. The BE 6 feels like a more "premium" car for the extra ₹12 lakh, and that matters on a long drive when you're staring at the dashboard for 10 hours total.

Which one wins

For pure highway use, the BE 6. The bigger battery means fewer stops, the chassis is properly highway-tuned, the front seats are made for long shifts. If you do 4+ inter-city trips a year and care about driving experience, it's worth the ₹12 lakh extra.

For 80% city + 20% highway, the Windsor. The reclining rear seat is a genuine quality-of-life feature, the price gap is huge, the ride at city speeds is more compliant. The two extra charging stops on the rare highway trip are an inconvenience, not a dealbreaker.

The honest summary: these are both good cars. The BE 6 is a properly engineered driver's EV, the Windsor is a smartly engineered passenger's EV. Pick the one that matches how you actually use a car, not the one with the bigger spec sheet.