I want to buy an electric scooter, but I have many doubts about the battery life. If it degrades badly in just a few years then my money will be wasted. Is it really sensible to buy an EV?
Jairam G, via email
Autocar India says: There is a rapidly growing number of electric two wheelers on the road and all of these are smart and connected machines that are sending data back to the manufacturer on all sorts of parameters, including vehicle health. While the privacy implications of this are an ongoing discussion, one big benefit is that this data is helping to improve our understanding of battery longevity.
When it comes to EVs, we strongly recommend buying a reputed product from proven players including the likes Ather, Bajaj, TVS and Hero MotoCorp’s Vida brand. This holds especially true for the peace of mind with battery safety and longevity.
Of these players, Ather has been around the longest with e-scooters on the road for over five years now, and the company had some interesting metrics to share at its recent Community Day event. Ather claims that of its first gen scooters which have been on the road since 2019, the average battery health across the board is still at 90 percent. With that in mind, it would appear that these scooters still have many more years of usable battery life to follow.
While this was a big unknown in the industry just a few years ago, another sign of the manufacturer’s increasing confidence in battery life is the growing size of warranties being offered. 5 year warranties are now becoming commonplace and Ultraviolette recently announced an industry leading 8 year optional battery warranty.
With that in mind, it does look like battery life isn’t the concern it was once made out to be and you should look at getting a lot of years out of a – good quality – electric two wheeler.
