tech2 News Staff

Bengaluru-based startup, Ather Energy, has unveiled what is calls 'India's first smart scooter' at the ongoing two-day Surge conference. The startup is founded by IITians Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, and has received funding from Tiger Global and Flipkart founders.

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The S340 smart scooty features a lithium ion battery pack with a top speed of 72 kmph and a range up to 60kms. The battery pack uses the 18650 cell format, also seen in Tesla’s Model S electric scooter. It takes 50 minutes to achieve 80 percent charge using the fast charging mode. The S340’s IP67-rated battery pack claims a life cycle of 50,000 kms and a life span of 5-6 years.

The scooty comes with a touchscreen dashboard integrating cloud-based data that helps personalise the consumer ride experience. Some features include a profile-based sign in, onboard navigation and pre-configured drive modes. The scooter comes integrated with a S340 mobile app that helps configure the ride and profile preferences. You can even sync navigation routes. However, co-founder Tarun Mehta told us that they haven't built the app yet, and are still thinking about it. But the app could help users get an early feel of the product.

We got a closer view of the dashboard or a touch-dashboard, we must say. On the upper side there are touch icons for Bluetooth and Maps. It also shows the time. On tapping the Maps icon, it directly pulls up the map but due to poor connectivity it couldn't be demoed to us, we were told. It shows the speed, fuel, and modes like economy, reverse and power. There are options like History, showing your travel history and also lets you mark Favourites.

The scooter will be manufactured in India. The manufacturing unit is in Bengaluru and the production is likely to begin by the end of this year. The test rides will begin in the next few months and the company will start taking pre-booking orders in select cities such as Bengaluru, Chennai and Pune.