It has been more than month since we purchased our first electric scooter. I have been wanting to update the blog but was so busy with many things. I finally got some time now as I sit in the Ampere showroom waiting for my scooter to be serviced. For those of you who don’t know, we purchased Ampere Mangnus Grand electric scooter. For details on how we arrived at this particular vehicle, see my previous posts.


We visited a couple of Ampere showrooms near where we live and got some quotes. Both showrooms gave a quote of about Rs. 93K after discounts. However, one showroom person suggested that I order the scooter on Flipkart because they are giving better discounts and once I give him the order details, he said he will get it delivered to his showroom.


So we purchased it on Flipkart during the festival season when we got a decent discount on the scooter right there in his showroom. The cost was Rs. 80,000. He took the order details and confirmed that the scooter will be available next day. On top of that we had to spend Rs. 10,000 for RTO, insurance and handling charges. Next we sold our old scooter at the same showroom for Rs. 14,000. Putting it all together, we spent about Rs. 76,000 for the new one after exchanging the old scooter. Well within our budget.


We could have saved even more if we sold the old scooter ourselves and contacted more showrooms for better discounts. Anyway, it was not a bad deal. The third-party insurance is for 5 years so I don’t have to worry about it. We got the delivery the next day and we picked it up from the showroom.


Our initial impressions of the driving experience is very positive. We really love the quiet engine. Since this is our first EV, we never expected the ride to be so comfortable. No vibrations like our old one. The suspensions are better. After having driven for a month and over 600 kms, we really love it. One thing my better half likes about this hub motor engine is that there is no whine like Ather or the newer Ola vehicles which have a chain or belt drive. It is absolutely silent.


Coming to things that we don’t like as much include the seat being too high for the pillion. Now the biggest thumbs down for my better half seems to be the acceleration. This particular model has a 1.5 kW motor (nominal) with a peak output of 2.4 kW. Some powerful EVs like Ather or Ola have a much bigger motor like 5.5 kW (nominal) and 13 kW peak. So when you turn the throttle those scooters just zip through from standstill to 60 kmph in no time. Our scooter takes it own sweet time to reach 60 kmph even on high speed setting.


So when we are driving on the highway and have to stop for signal and accelerate, all the vehicles just seem to accelerate faster than ours. It is not a major deal breaker for me, but my wife prefers more acceleration apparently. So I am wondering if I should have gone for the top end model of Ampere which is Nexus with a 3.3 kW nominal and 4.0 kW peak motor. In our test drive we did not get a chance to do quick acceleration so we never noticed it.


Anyway, that is the latest update so far. The first service is due after 1 month or 900 kms (whichever is earlier). We drove about 700 kms in one month before the service was due. So must have saved about 15-16 liters of petrol saving more then Rs. 1500 in petrol expenses.


I try to keep the battery charged between 20%-80%. I added a repeating calendar event to charge the battery to 100% every 4 weeks. The owner’s manual recommends charging to full 100% once a week but what I read from the internet, it only needs to be charged to 100% once a month mainly for the battery calibration. Rest of the time they (and the manual) recommend a lower charge and to avoid frequent charging.


The manual also suggests that we wait 30 mins after a drive before charging the battery to allow the battery cool down after a ride. Similarly, it recommends waiting 15 mins after charging the battery before we go on a ride again to allow the battery to cool down from charging. We are making sure we follow all the good battery health habits. So lets see how long the battery lasts.


I noticed that the battery charges 20% in one hour. So before I plugin the scooter, I note down the battery percentage and determine how many hours I need to charge the battery to get to 80%, set a timer in my phone and turn off the switch. In future I am planning to automate this using home assistant.


The battery is 2.3 KWh. Since the voltage is 48V, the battery must be about 48 Ah or so. Since the battery gets fully charged in 5 hours, I am guessing it is being charged with 10 amps of current. That is a 0.2C charging rate which is about what I would expect for a healthy charging current. There is no fast charging available for this scooter which is how I like it.


We never really stress tested the scooter, but I think the indicated battery percent and range are pretty accurate so far. We went to as low as 7% from 100% and clocked 83 kms of mixed driving (mostly eco). So I am confident that it will give the claimed range of 90 kms on full charge. There you have it. All the information that I gathered until now.