Bengalauru based Ather Energy unveils, India’s first smart scooter

Bengalauru based start up, Ather Energy unveiled the country's first smart electric scooter, the S340, at the recently held Web Summit Surge conference.

The trials and pre-orders are set to commence in the next few months and deliveries are likely to be effected from the end of the year. According to the company, the S340 would initially be available in three cities. Prospective buyers can get to experience the ride at Ather's experience centres.

According to the company's founder president, Tarun Mehta, the S340 would carry a price tag under 1 lakh. Electric scooters currently available in the market in India, run on lead-acid batteries and among their drawbacks are a top speed of 25 to 40 kmph, poor acceleration, battery life of 5,000 to 6,000 kilometers and a 6 to 8 hour charging time.

The S340 sets out to change this perception of electric scooters by offering an experience that parallels petrol-powered scooters. It will offer a top speed of 75 kmph, 0 to 60 kmph sprint in 11 seconds and an estimated driving range of 50-100 kilometers.

The smart scooter, S340 comes with both GSM and Bluetooth connectivity. The startup had decided to move from Android to Linux for the dashboard operating  system. According to a spokesperson it would use Google Maps for navigation through the web browser.

It doesn't really change much for developers, because the apps are still HTML 5 apps. Internally things haven't changed dramatically," gadgets.ndtv.com reported. Users will be able to track the vehicle using their smartphones, remotely control and monitor the vehicle, enable fast charging by using a a slider on its app.

"You could create custom riding profiles from your mobile phone itself, so that when the vehicle starts, on your profile, those settings will already be pre-saved. So you can specify, what kind of acceleration response, top speed you want, and then save them on your profile, and then go to the vehicle, and select your profile again, those are the exact settings you will find."