Electrify your ride!

Battery-driven bikes have come and buyers will soon have many choices

Finally push has come to shove in the e-electric vehicle business. After a decade of dithering, government has finally decided to encourage non-fossil-fuel bikes and cars, with more than pious platitudes. It has created a Rs 800 crore corpus to fund FAME India — Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles in India and once manufacturers qualify, they will be offered incentives of up to Rs 29,000 for a bike and Rs 1.38 lakh for cars.

But good old Indian jugaad has already kicked in, even before government subsidies do. A number of startups are putting electric transporters of all kinds on the road by 2017. A few were previewed at the recently concluded Indian Gadgetz Expo in Bangalore:

It’s time to go electric If you already have a bike but aspire to get features of smart bikes, opt for a conversion kit. You can connect the kit to your motorbike. The Bitmotion kit will cost you around Rs 8,000. Many e-scooters are already available at prices between Rs 25,000 and Rs 60,000 from makers like Hero, Lohia, Avon, Indus, Palatino etc. The signs are clear — it’s time to think ‘e’ for electric for your personal transportation!

Zap around the town Volta motors is a Chennai start-up which has designed India’s first cross-over electric bike — something between a bicycle and a moped. Called Volta ZAP, it offers a 60 km range for a single charge without pedaling, with an operating cost of around 7 paise per kilometre. Top speed is restricted to 25 KMPH. The battery of Volta Zap weighs just 3 kgs, among the lightest battery for an e-bike. Usefully, the battery is removable, which allows you to charge one battery while using another.

The Pedal assist feature is geared and gives three full wheels of rotation for every pedal rotation. With the battery off, I could pedal the Zap as I would any geared bicycle. The Zap comes with a digital display on the handlebar, LED lights and a mobile app. No driving licence or registration is required.

Time for personal transporter The Irrway, from Bangalore-headquartered Greendzine is quite different from anything seen on Indian roads. It is a personal transporter that will remind people of the famous Segway launched in the US in 2002. In fact, the Irrway is designed developed, by a small team of Indian engineers, led by co-founders Anjan Kumar and Karthikeyan Sundaram. It is a rear wheel powered, 3-wheel, stable platform, battery driven electric vehicle with intelligent safety systems. It runs at around 12-15 kmph and has simple controls — a brake and an accelerator. It is already available to businesses but for lay users it will be available from January 2017 for Rs 39,500. The makers are working on a model with more safety features for our roads.

Premium e-scooter Six months ago a premium e-scooter was previewed — the Ather S340 ( S for the Scooter, 3 for the 3KWh motor and 40 for the 40 Amp battery). It can achieve 72 KMPH with a 60 KM range on full battery. It sports a dashboard with 7 inch touch screen that integrates with cloud-based data through a SIM card to enable constant data transfer and updates. The company was started by IIT Madras grads, Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain and production will commence at year end. No price has been mentioned but it will likely cost than Rs 1lakh.