Eight carmakers now let buyers skip the upfront cost of an EV's battery — here is every model, its BaaS price and its per-kilometre rate.
Battery-as-a-Service, or BaaS, has moved from a one-brand experiment to a mainstream purchase option across India's electric car market. Under a BaaS scheme, a buyer pays a lower ex-showroom price for the car without its battery, then pays separately for the battery — usually through a monthly EMI expressed as a rate per kilometre. JSW MG Motor India pioneered the model with the Windsor EV in September 2024. Since then, Tata Motors, Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Kia, Citroen and Toyota have all introduced their own versions.
It is worth understanding how the schemes differ before shopping by headline price alone. Only MG runs a genuine usage-linked battery rental, billed through a financing partner at a flat rate per kilometre. The rest — Tata, Mahindra, Maruti, Hyundai and Kia — structure BaaS as two parallel loans, one for the vehicle and one for the battery, typically running up to eight years; their "per km" figure is simply the battery EMI divided by an assumed daily distance, usually 44–60km. Citroen uses a per-km rate with a minimum monthly distance attached. Here is every model currently on sale with the option, from cheapest to priciest.
1. Tata Tiago EV — from Rs 4.69 lakh + Rs 2.6/km
Tata's cheapest BaaS car, available on the Smart 19 variant since the 2026 facelift. Buying outright costs Rs 6.99 lakh, so the battery route saves Rs 2.30 lakh upfront.
