Odysse Evoqis Review: One Bike, Many Names, Same Story

William Shakespeare famously once questioned, “What's in a name?”. Names can often be misleading, for example, my name is Ishan Lee, but I'm not Chinese. That said, everyone knows, looks can be deceiving too. For example, the pictured motorcycle is NOT a Kawasaki Ninja, it’s in fact the Odysse… errm its got so many stickers suggesting quite a few names: V6, Win1000, Speedmaster, and Evoqis.

See the confusion! Hence, in this review we investigate two things: 

1. The real name of this Odysse e-bike.

2. What’s it like to ride and should you consider buying it!    

Will The Real Slim Shady, Please Stand Up?

Who doesn’t like a race bike? They’re way more aggressive looking than their production avatars, because nothing says ‘speed and sporty’ like a bunch of random words plastered all over. And while Odysse has clearly gone a little overboard with the stickering, this bike’s real name is Evoqis.

The Perfect Spy!

If you’re one of those guys looking to make the switch to EVs but your petrolhead friends are calling a tree hugger, this e-bike is the perfect decoy and it’s green too. Everywhere we took it, people asked if this was the newest Ninja, or a 1000cc supersport. The body work is convincingly on point. 

Sharp and mean projector headlights with red LEDs, a virtually unreadable digital instrument console, a dozen random sporty stickers, they all add to giving the Evoqis a proper ‘racer boy’ attitude. Sure, it’s missing an exhaust, the mirrors aren’t aligned, and it’s hard to explain why you never need fuel. But look on the bright side, the Evoqis is the perfect e-bike to blend casually between a group of ICE supersports. 

How Does It Deliver On Its Range & Performance Claims? 

The Evoqis is powered by a 3kW motor with a peak power of 4.3kW. For reference, that’s almost the same as a standard TVS iQube. It’s even got a similar top speed - the Evoqis claims a top speed of 80kmph whereas the iQube claims 78kmph. According to our VBox data, the Evoqis clocked a true speed of 79kmph.

In terms of throttle response and lag the Evoqis isn’t as jerky or twitchy as some China-rebadged e-scooters, or from even some established one, we’ve ridden recently. There is a noticeable lag when you crack open the throttle from standstill but the bike responds quickly. It does take a little time to understand the throttle calibration, but once you do, making overtakes becomes easier. 

Acceleration:

Roll-on: 

Speaking of range, Odysse claims the Evoqis’ 4.32kWh battery is good for 100-plus kilometers, and in our range test it delivered a strong 142.26km from a single charge. For reference, that’s around what top brands like the Ola S1 Pro and Ather 450X scored in our range test. So then, it delivers well in some critical areas which influence the EV purchase process. 

With regards to charging time- the brand claims the e-bike can be charged back up to 100 percent in six hours, but in our experience, it sometimes took longer. An overnight charge did the trick, which again is when most EV buyers would leave their vehicles on charge, so I guess that’s ok.

That said, one drawback of this e-bike is that unlike e-scooters with underseat storage tubs for things like your charger, this e-bike has no dedicated storage space. I mean it does, there’s ample room inside the fake fuel tank, but the fuel filler cap hole is just too small to put anything through. 

Does It Ride Like The Ninja? 

Honestly, I don’t know. And the reason for that is something I find fundamentally disturbing about this bike. I have owned a few bikes and at the time of delivery things variably gone wrong. Things like the showroom having missed connecting the instrument console wire, a loose bolt here and there or maybe even a scratch. But always something minor. 

In the case of this test bike which we got, the steering head had been over tightened, the forks seemed misaligned and the bike pulled hard to the left. The bike had not fallen or wasn’t damaged in any way. It was wrapped in packaging plastic when we got it, and that’s what bothers me the most. 

It’s ok if a brand chooses not to invest in making an electric motorcycle from scratch and rather chooses to repackage and resell something from China. iPhones are made in China, so Chinese manufacturing can’t be the only one to blame here. I feel, if a brand does not have the basic interest to check its product for ride quality, stability and safety before delivering it to customers, it’s setting itself up for failure. Because this is a failure of trust, trust that I will get a mechanically sound product for the money I’ve paid.

Even these twin discs at the front and single at the back do not inspire much confidence. There is no ABS or CBS, or at least it didn’t feel it actuating, and the rear locks up into a rather dramatic fishtail. Add to that a wonky front end and we weren’t enjoying the experience from behind the handlebar very much. 

Braking test: 

There aren’t too many features to talk about either, well except for the two separate buttons for the horn, wow! It gets four riding modes – two to go forwards, one to go backwards and one park mode to stand around and do stuff. They’re accessed by rotating the dial on the handlebar, like shifting gears in a rickshaw. There’s no app, no Bluetooth connectivity, and no USB charging either     

Verdict & Price:

Honestly, I could overlook the blatant design ‘similarities’. I can overlook the shabby built quality and absurd stickering too if the price wasn’t Rs 1.71 lakh and that’s excluding the RTO charges, insurance and local depot charges you’d have to pay for one of these. I don't think I can ever get myself to put my own money on something like this, more so because of how mechanically unsafe and unsound this particular test bike is.  But if you want an electric bike with good range and good looks and can overlook these glaring niggles, then go for it, as for us, we shall look somewhere else.