With the launch of the Ola Electric Scooter expected any day, Ola CEO Bhavish Agarwal has taken to teasing its features via Twitter polls. First, he had tweeted a range of colour options for the scooter, asking Twitter users to vote on their preferred choices.
The company later announced the scooter would be available in ten colours, satisfying most of those polled. Now, in similar fashion, Agarwal has tweeted a poll asking users what top speed they would like from the scooter.
“What top speed would you want for the Ola Scooter?” Agarwal asked, with the options listed being 80kmph, 90 kmph, over 100kmph and a jokey “Don’t care, just want it” option.
Predictably, most people selected the +100kmph option. If the Ola Electric Scooter can achieve this, it would put it ahead of the class-topping Ather 450x which maxes out at 80kmph in Warp mode.
However, as a few users pointed out, top speeds are not very useful in the city, where slower speeds occupy most of one’s commute. Many would prefer range over speed. Ola had promised segment-leading range for its coming electric scooter, with estimates of around 150km of range with normal usage. A leaked image of the scooter’s display showed that it had a range of 122km remaining with just 87 per cent charge.
However, with electric scooters (and with internal combustion engines) range heavily depends on the performance eked out of the engine. So like with the Ather 450x, the maximum range will depend on the riding mode and its built-in speed limit.
If Agarwal takes the “satisfy everybody” route with the Ola Electric scooter following his poll, the company will offer riding modes that can promise over 100kmph speeds at cost of range, or lower speeds offering the most range, with just a flip of a button.
It can be noted that the Ola Electric scooter was originally to be based on the Etergo Appscooter, which had a 100kmph top speed and up to 240km of range with three battery modules strapped in. However, Ola have said they completely re-engineered the scooter from the ground up for its own electric scooter, so the final figures could vary.
The Ola Electric Scooter is expected in three variants with 2kW, 4kW and 7kW motors.
According to a report, the Ola Electric Scooter could be priced between Rs 85,000 and Rs 1.1 lakh on-road.
The Ola Electric will be available in matte and gloss shades from options in blue and black, the vibrant hues of red, pink and yellow, as well as white and silver.
With Ola opening bookings for the scooter for a token sum of Rs 500, Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma was among those who bought in. "Done" tweeted Sharma, after booking his Ola Electric Scooter.