Ampere Nexus First Ride Review: A Well-Rounded Everyday Commuter

The electric two-wheeler market is a very competitive one and the Ampere Nexus is set to take on some of the heavy hitters in the family scooter segment like the Ather Rizta, Ola S1 Air and the TVS iQube. We recently rode Ampere’s most premium offering and here are our thoughts on it:

Design

As a family-oriented scooter, the Ampere Nexus looks quite snazzy with its boxy design and sharp design lines. The LED headlight looks simple and bold and the indicators at the front apron are neatly integrated into the whole design, giving the scooter quite a premium feel. The same can be said for the pillion footrests as when they are closed, they don’t stick out of the scooter’s body, which is a nice touch. The Zanskar Aqua colour on our test vehicle makes the electric scooter look particularly striking and gives it a good road presence. 

The overall build quality of the scooter is pretty top-notch with no visible panel gaps and wires dangling around. The quality of the switches is good as well and they have a nice, tactile feel to them. 

Battery, Motor, Range And Performance

The Nexus gets a 3kWh with a claimed range of 136km. Now, during our short ride with the scooter, we didn’t get a chance to thoroughly test but a real world range of 105km can be expected when using a mix of riding modes, which is more than adequate for someone using it as a daily commuter in the city. 

Regarding performance, the Nexus has a top speed of 93kmph and the acceleration off the line is very good. It is smooth and linear and the impressive part about it is that the acceleration stays constant and doesn’t start tapering off once you start reaching the capped top speed in each riding mode (93kmph in Power mode, 63kmph in City mode and 42kmph in Eco mode). One thing to note here is that there is a fair bit of throttle lag when you are riding in stop and go traffic in Eco and City mode. Let’s say you arrive at an U-turn, slow down and start acceleration again once you’ve made the turn, the throttle can feel jerky which is annoying at times. 

Handling

The Ampere Nexus feels very light and nimble on the move. It tips into corners very easily and the tyres offer good grip as well, which instil confidence whenever you want to ride the scooter in a spirited manner. Moving in and out of traffic is very easy with this scooter. 

The brakes offer decent stopping power but are not as sharp as some of the other premium electric scooters we’ve tested, such as the Ather 450X. They take a bit of time to kick in after you’ve pulled the lever and the feedback from the levers could’ve been better as well. 

Comfort

The suspension setup on the scooter does a decent job of absorbing bumps and potholes. On  smooth tarmac, it feels quite plush but when going over larger bumps at high speeds, the imperfect road conditions can be felt on your backside due to the stiffer rear suspension. There is a silver lining here though as the well-padded seat negates some of that experience and the seat is long and wide enough for two well-sized adults to seat comfortably. 

Features

The Nexus’ EX variant gets a 6.2-inch LCD instrument console while the ST variant, which we tested, gets a 7-inch TFT instrument console with Bluetooth connectivity, turn-by-turn navigation and two display themes (Day and Night). Every information on the TFT screen is well laid-out but the visibility of the screen could have been better under harsh sunlight. 

It is pretty easy to connect your phone to the console through the Ampere application and turn-by-turn navigation works quite well. The Day and Night display themes switch automatically in a seamless manner depending on the ambient lighting. 

The impressive thing about the features list is that Ampere has kept it very simple to choose between the two variants. The console related features and the ST variant’s Rs 10,000 premium over the EX variant are the only differences.

Verdict

The EX variant costs Rs 1,09,900 while the ST variant costs Rs 1,19,900 (both ex-showroom including EMPS 2024 (Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme 2024). With this pricing, the Ampere Nexus is a very good all-round, family-oriented electric scooter. The good performance and range output along with the nimble handling characteristics, ample seating for two and a decent features list makes it a very good product for everyday commuting.