The new Bajaj Chetak electric scooter goes on sale January 2020 with deliveries to begin in Pune first followed by other cities. It will be produced at the company’s Chakan plant.
20 Bajaj Chetak electric scooters completed the yatra that saw each scooter travelling a distance of 3500 km. That’s a total distance of 70,000 km across all the scooters. Bajaj says that the battery life of the lithium-ion units on the Chetak is about 70,000 km, and was tested across different weather conditions, terrains, road surfaces and more.
That’s one of the longer warranty tenures in the industry for electric two-wheelers are concerned. There are longer periods on offer though with Revolt Intellicorp offering a warranty period of five years/75,000 km, along with free maintenance benefits up to three years/30,000 km and a battery warranty of up to eight years/1.5 lakh km. The more comparable Ather Energy offers a battery life up to 50,000 km and comes with a three year/unlimited km warranty. The Ather 450 comes with a two year warranty period.
In addition, Bajaj also revealed that the Chetak will also be built at its Chakan facility in Maharashtra and gets an all-female workforce on the assembly line. The electric scooter has a smaller assembly line in comparison to Bajaj’s conventional offerings, considering EV have fewer moving parts.
With respect to meeting demand and production constraints, Rajiv Bajaj said that the company has prepared itself to ramp up production depending on the demand. Explaining the strategy, the Bajaj boss said that meeting production demands is something the company learnt from the introduction of the original Pulsar in 2001 that managed to sell about 10,000 units a month, as against the initial internal expectations of 1500 units per month. That taught the company to be ready to meet rising demand in the future. Furthermore, the Bajaj Chetak will be exported to other markets as well, while the modular platform underpinning the electric scooter could find its way on models from KTM and Husqvarna. That means, there are faster and more European looking electric scooters on the way that will make their to the market in the future.
There Bajaj Chetak electric scooter comes with a single-sided suspension, LED headlamp with DRL, illuminated switchgear, glovebox, retractable hook, 12-inch alloy wheels, front disc brake, and more. The battery can be charged up to 80 per cent in five hours, but does not come with fast charging. The new offering will be first launched in Pune in January this year and prices are expected in the vicinity of ₹ 1-1.5 lakh (ex-showroom). The company will continue to pitch the Chetak as a mass market offering much like its predecessor, and sales will open in other cities in a phased manner. This includes Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Delhi among others.
