BANGALORE: After the electric car ‘Rewa’, Bangalore is going gaga for another battery run automobile. Set to hit the roads on 21 January, the Eco-Cosmic is a low cost battery operated electric scooter manufactured by Bangalore based Ekovehicles Pvt. Ltd.
The vehicle is expected to cost around Rs 29,000 (inclusive Rs 4,000 towards taxes and insurance). The scooter is designed to target the lower middle class segment.
The vehicle has a range of around 50 kms per battery charge. Each four-hour battery charge translates into an approximately 1KWh charge which means about Rs 3 to Rs 6 cost for the 50 kms range. The company says that the actual cost per km works out to about Re. 0.35 per km for their scooter as against the average cost of Re1 per km for the petrol driven scooters.
The company plans to manufacture 750 to 1000 units per month during the first year of operations and already have a three month backlog of bookings. They plan to appoint about 20 dealers in Bangalore initially.
The company is also in talks with colleges, petrol bunks, cinema theaters, hospitals and major institutions for setting up ‘Rapid Charging Points’ which will reduce the battery charging time to about 15 minutes and has received ‘in-principal’ approval from some institutions. Initially the company expects to set up around 55-60 such charging points in Bangalore.