Hello, and welcome to PowerDrift, today I am going to show you a brochure.
No this is One, the new scooter from Simple Energy, it's called the Simple One.
And I'm going to just take a moment and get something from outside.
Can I just get that please?
This is of course, PD from ZigWheels and I'll tell you what this is in a minute.
But let's talk about the scooter first.
So this is the new One from Simple Energy.
This is still a prototype. In terms of quality levels
this is pretty raw, they're still about two months out from production,
so deliveries will happen by November or December.
So we're not going to judge this on quality
but what this brochure says in terms of numbers is actually very impressive.
So as you know, today on 15th of August as I record this Ola has also launched their scooter
and the first thing you need to know about the Simple Energy scooter is that the power output,
peak power output is the same, it's 8.5 kW for them,
it's 8.5 kW for this scooter too. Nominal output,
that's what it normally does is 4.5 kW
and that is actually impressive when you realise that this scooter is also 10 kilos lighter
it's 110 kilos at the curb, but the party trick for the Simple One is going to be the fact
that this scooter's range is over 200 kilometres
and Simple is saying this is not some 25 kilometres an hour economy mode thing,
this is in economy mode doing between 40 and 50 kilometres an hour
and at that state, it has enough juice to be able to give you a genuine 200-kilometre range
and the ARAI certified number on the IDC is actually 236 kilometres, which if you think
about it is very impressive, especially when you realise that in the Sonic mode, which
is their fastest mode, this scooter will actually do 105 kilometres an hour.
So if you think about it, it goes more than 100 kilometres an hour, and it has a range
of 236 on the IDC, which basically means that your issues both with performance and charging
should be solved. Are they solved though?
That's a story for another time, once we ride the scooter and that story should be out on
PowerDrift soon. Let's see some other numbers.
The other thing that stands out for me is the idea that this company wanted to build
everything from scratch from themselves, they wanted to solve every problem by themselves.
And they're a design focused company according to their founder, Suhas.
So what he's saying is that, they thought, how do I solve the problem of the middle class
person, which is, how do I replace a petrol scooter directly without really adding anything
new to the experience,
and to that extent, the idea that you've to charge it instead of refuelling
is the only thing that changes.
And the thing about this scooter, is you get a 700-watt charger as standard,
but, you should be able to spend about 9000 rupees more and get a 1.2 kW charger,
which should drastically reduce your charging times as well.
But on the battery front, the interesting thing for me is that they've got two batteries
on the scooter, one is fixed under the floorboard, that is the usual thing to do.
And this actually is the second spare battery.
This is about a seven and a half kilo battery pack, it meets a range of about 60 kilometres
and you can ride the scooter without this installed if you want to.
What that means is, the primary battery powers the scooter and that adds
60 kilometres more to the range.
In theory, you should be able to come to Simple Energy and purchase a second battery if you want
to and extend your ability to charge the battery,
or if you're stuck in the middle of somewhere, you can take this battery out, take it upstairs
into a shop or whatever and charge it from any 15-amp socket,
which I think solves a great problem.
So if for any reason you have range anxiety, despite the scooter having more than 200 kilometres
of range, I think this is a very, very good solution.
In terms of usability, this is a nice and wide seat, the seat height isn't too high,
it's got what looks like, decent brakes, normal suspension, it's a tubular steel frame underneath.
In that sense, Simple Energy's kept things pretty simple.
There aren't really any revolutionary things happening under the skin.
But the net result of it at least numerically is very impressive
we'll find out how it translates into the real world once you ride it.
On the connectivity front is another area where Simple want to do a lot of work
and one of the things that they say is that the system learns.
It's not a static system in that sense
and as you use more of it, the more things it'll do.
And in fact, it has a huge list of connectivity features.
It's that long.
The thing that stands out to me is apart from 4G, Bluetooth, GPS and all of those things,
it's got over the air updates, you are able to talk to your phone and get voice commands
to work on this and it will improve in terms of voice commands as time passes and the system
becomes smarter.
It's also got document storage, which a lot of scooters have now, but the scooter has a
standard tyre pressure monitoring system.
So this scooter right now I can tell you has 30psi of air in the front tyre and 32psi
in the rear, which I think is an interesting addition to the whole mix.
Apart from this, what we have still to establish is what will it feel like and what they're
promising us is that the suspension setup was done in-house, the tuning of the handling
was done in-house, they've actually got a aluminium swingarm at the bottom, the shock
the rear mono shock is mounted in the middle it's not to one side, it's centred on the scooter.
So it should be a good handling scooter
and to prove that they're taking us to a go-kart track tomorrow to see what the scooter is
like and that story should be out on the 20th of August.
And now for the kicker,
this is also not that expensive a scooter because the list price of the scooter today
is only 1.11 lakh rupees, which I think is pretty phenomenal when you realise that
that only includes the FAME II subsidies, state subsidies are extra.
So in a place like Gujarat, this scooter might be 80000-87000 rupees, which I think
is a very, very good idea for a scooter of this size, this range and this price.
What remains to be seen, of course, is the fact that this scooter is only on pre-booking
right now, we don't really know precisely when the launch will happen, although Simple
is expecting to have franchisees, dealers, experience centres, charging stations, all of that open
over the next three or four months, and they should be able to start producing the scooter soon.
And you should be able to think about getting deliveries in November or December this year.
So to me, two important electric scooters have been launched in the country today,
both of them break whatever we consider as the norm for electric scooters.
And in that sense, at least on the range front, which is one of the big anxiety points,
I think the Simple One is doing a great job.
How is it to ride? That's a story coming up on PowerDrift shortly.
Stay tuned.