Few
months when the Petrol/Diesel shortage happened in India I decided I will buy an electric
two-wheeler. Apart from the advantage of driving when Oil is scarce, I thought it
will also give a personal satisfaction of being environment friendly. Of course, nothing
is more "Green" than a bi-cycle. So about a month and half back I purchased
the Ultra
Velociti - an electric powered scooter. It runs only on Electricity with no Oil
at all, the dealer claims there is nothing to maintain or service in the vehicle other
than periodic Tyre Air-Pressure and Battery check.
Specifications of the scooter (* Under Standard Test conditions and
a payload of 75 Kg):
-
Speed 45 Km/ Hour*
-
Range 50 Km/ Charge* (Each full charge takes about 6 hours)
-
Vehicle weight 88 Kg
The only dealer
I could find in Chennai when I searched was GEE GEE Motors in Royapuram, but they
were willing to come down and give a test drive in my office. The scooter on road
including Road Tax, Registration & Insurance costs about Rs.41,000/-. After paying
the full money I had to wait for nearly 2 weeks before I got the vehicle complete
with registration and Number - I don't like to drive vehicles without number and insurance.
Having been driving only a car for last several years, when this scooter arrived it
was a experience of "Freedom" for me. I was able to go for local
shopping in crowded market streets in West Mambalam & T.Nagar easily, without
having to worry about parking and traffic. When I am driving this scooter and see
the vehicles next to me I feel good that I am not polluting and I am spending negligible
money for driving. Though the manual says maximum load is 120Kgs, I was able to ride
it myself with my wife and kid comfortably - obviously a bit slower than riding it
alone, but nevertheless you can. The one problem I faced was of charge, the power
meter is unreliable - from full, once it drops to half it takes only few minutes to
drop to zero. While it is in this region, it runs in kind of a stop-n-go motion. But
this was because I didn't charge for over a week (though I didn't drive more than
few kilometres as well), but it will be a wise idea to charge it every few days once
- to avoid this problem.
(You can see the charger in the left picture, the other
end can be plugged to any 5V socket; The Power-meter and Speedometer in the picture
on right)
Overall I found it to be a great second vehicle. Can it be the only one?, I doubt.
I feel the technology, power of the motor and the engineering have to undergo one
or two more iterations before the first time two-wheeler purchaser can go for this,
selecting this over a motorbike.
Reference: GEE GEE MOTORS, 73, Mannarsamy Koil Street, Royapuram, Chennai.Phone: 044-43528008,
43528009
Read the complete post at http://www.venkatarangan.com/blog/2008/10/11/My+Electric+Scooter.aspx