India’s bustling metropolis is home to a unique and wonderful world of two-wheelers. In recent years, a lot of these have become electric, and along with them, a whole bunch of new players have joined the game.
One of these players is Ather Energy, a brand we’ve talked about before. It’s considered one of the pioneers of India’s EV scene with its 450X. And just recently, it unveiled a brand new model called the Rizta. Marketed as a family-friendly electric scooter, it's designed to be practical, user-friendly, and high-tech all at the same time.
So, how did Ather manage to tick all those boxes?
Well, for starters, it’s clear to see from the scooter’s design that it’s more than ready to comfortably seat two adults. There’s even a passenger grab handle and backrest for your pillion to stay nice and comfy on longer rides. Seeing a family of three, maybe even four, bunched up on this thing is by no means a far-fetched possibility in India.
Ather has also given the scooter a lot of storage space under the seat, and the fact that it’s a scooter with a flat floor means there’s some extra space for you to stow some groceries in between your legs.
Just like the 450X, the Rizta is filled to the brim with tons of fancy technology, for instance, the base Rizta S model comes standard with a seven-inch Deep View Display complete with 8GB of storage and a 1GB RAM. The Pro package unlocks features like multiple ride modes, hill-hold assist, and phone and music control.
There’s even Alexa integration so you can converse with your scooter and ask it to make calls and change songs for you.
As for performance, the Ather Rizta is powered by an electric motor integrated into the rear wheel hub. It’s rated at 4.3 kW, and pumps out the equivalent of about 5.7 horsepower. Ather says that this is good for a top speed of 80 kilometers per hour (about 50 miles per hour), which is by no means fast, but quick enough for the urban jungle.
Battery-wise, the Rizta is offered with two options, with a 2.9 kWh unit with a claimed range of 123 kilometers (76 miles), and a bigger 3.7 kWh pack with 160 kilometers (100 miles) of claimed range.
Now, if you were looking at this scooter’s specs from the context of the European market, it wouldn’t be surprising if this thing carried a sticker price of about 6,000 euros (around $6,420 USD). Amazingly, however, Ather is able to price the scooter much more affordably, with the base model retailing for just 109,999 rupees, or approximately $1,320 USD. The top-of-the-line Z variant with a 3.7 kWh battery pack is only slightly pricier at 144,999 rupees, or around $1,800 USD.
Affordable and tech-loaded offerings like the Ather Rizta undoubtedly make electric mobility accessible to the masses, particularly in price-sensitive markets like India. Perhaps more importantly, they set the stage for more affordable models in the global market, and put pressure on bigger manufacturers to price their products competitively.
On the flip side, however, all these affordable electric motorcycles and scooters are a relatively new thing, popping up just within the last decade. And if we look at things from a long-term perspective, they could cause more problems than solutions. This is in large part because we don’t know if all these e-mobility devices were built with longevity in mind.
If the old adage “you get what you pay for” rings true in this case, then there’s a chance a lot of these e-mobility gadgets could just end up in landfills and add to the ever-growing e-waste problem.
