BREAKING: River’s First e-Scooter Floats To The Indian Shores

Just a month after it was spotted testing, Indian electric mobility startup River has launched its first electric scooter, the Indie. 

What’s The Price? Who Are Its Rivals?

Available in three colours (Monsoon Blue, Summer Red and Spring Yellow), the River Indie is on sale for an introductory price of Rs 1,24,999 (ex-showroom Bengaluru, including FAME II subsidy). Bookings for the e-scooter have commenced on the company’s website for Rs 1,250. With that, it goes up against the more premium e-scooters in the market like the Ather 450X, TVS iQube Electric, Hero Vida V1 and the Ola S1 Pro.

What's New?

The River Indie has some stylistic cues with the Yamaha Neo’s that was showcased in India last year. That said, it appears much larger, muscular and more imposing than the Neo’s. 

The Indie packs quite a bunch of interesting bits. At the heart of it, is a 6.7kW (peak) motor with the ability to propel the scooter to a 90kmph claimed top speed. The 4kWh battery pack ensures a 120km claimed real world range and it can be charged upto 80 percent in five hours with a standard charger. Warranty for both, the scooter and the battery stands at  five years or 50,000km. Befitting its tagline ‘The SUV of Scooters’, the River Indie gets beefy 14-inch wheels. For perspective, the BGauss D15 gets 15-inchers. Its 770mm seat height and 165mm ground clearance make it that much more India-friendly.  

It's interesting to note that the River EV has raised clip-on handlebars, like we’ve seen on sport-tourers. The manufacturer has employed a telescopic fork and twin rear preload-adjustable with disc brakes at both ends along with CBS. 

The Indie's six-inch LCD and three riding modes (Eco, Ride and Rush) aren’t really unheard of, what truly hasn’t been seen in the Indian scooter market is a massive 43-litre underseat storage capacity! The Indie is now the scooter with the biggest boot in India, dethroning the Ola S1 Pro’s 36-litre storage space. That said, the production-ready Indie will get consoles with improved user interface, and not the one the brand showed.

The 12-litre lockable front glove box space and two USB charging ports further add to the practicality. The Indie even has alloy front foot pegs, something we’ve not really seen before. That ensures that your feet have something to rest on even if your floorboard is crammed with luggage. 

There are also a slew of accessories available for the Indie. You can get yourself pannier stays, accessory mounts, bag hooks, top box and more.

ZigSays

The River Indie looks unique, and has all the features in place, at least on paper. We hope the startup can set up enough dealerships pan-India and is able to meet the demand without any bottlenecks and hence deliver on all fronts as promised. Deliveries for the Indie will begin in August this year and we hope to get our hands on this funky little EV soon.