One of the biggest problems with electric motorcycles right now is the fact that ones that have decent range cost a fortune and you end up right back to buying another gas bike. India’s Ola Electric thinks it has a solution, but the specs of its new motorcycle are so insane that I just don’t believe it. The new Ola Roadster Pro claims it’ll do 360 miles on a charge, top out at 120 mph, and do that for a touch under $3,000. What in the world?
If you don’t follow the electric motorcycle world, these specs sound just too good to be true. I’ve been testing a 2023 Zero DSR/X for more than a year. That bike is a $22,995 flagship with a 17.3 kWh (15.1 kWh nominal) battery and a city range of 179 miles or an off-road range of 200 miles. It tops out at 113 mph and gets 100 HP from its motor.
Somehow, Ola is saying its new Roadster Pro electric motorcycle will go 360 miles on a charge despite a 16 kWh battery and it’s going to have a higher top speed all for just 250,000 rupees or the equivalent of $2,977. That isn’t a typo, this bike is supposed to cost less than a crappy car on Facebook, yet have as much range as a Tesla. What is going on here?
Who, Again?
Ola Electric was founded in 2017 as a subsidiary of ANI Technologies, the parent company of transportation company Ola.
The founder of Ola is Bhavish Aggarwal and his ventures are basically the Indian equivalents of popular brands here in America. Ola is a ride-hailing service like Uber and Ola Electric is close enough to being something like India’s Tesla. Ola Electric was envisioned as a way to reduce Ola’s dependency on fossil fuels while also getting the masses in India on electric transportation.
To show how serious it is, Ola Electric threw metric tonnes of cash around to construct a massive production facility in just eight months in 2021. This facility is called the Future Factory and Ola says it’s building around 1,000 electric scooters a day inside of it. Ola Electric then owns a total of 500 acres of land on the property so that future expansion is easy. The Future Factory is also seen as a bit of a trailblazer since the vast majority of its workforce is staffed by women.
How did Ola Electric do this? Well, Aggarwal bought the firm from ANI Technologies and then managed to raise $56 million from Tiger Global, $250 million from SoftBank, and some unknown amount of money from Ratan Tata.
Vehicle production kicked off not long after Ola Electric acquired cash-strapped Amsterdam electric scooter maker Etergo. At the time, Etergo was six years deep into developing an electric scooter with swappable batteries and a 150-mile range. Ola Electric promised to finish what Etergo couldn’t and get an electric scooter on India’s roads in 2021.
Ola Electric pulled it off, too, getting what it called the S1 scooter on the road by December 2021. Since then, Ola Electric has taken off like wildfire and now controls more than 30 percent of India’s electric scooter market. Today, Ola sells three different high-tech and surprisingly affordable electric scooters. For example, for the equivalent of $1,597, you could buy the Ola S1 Pro, an electric scooter that goes 75 mph and 121 miles on a charge under India’s extremely generous IDC testing scheme. But still, that’s a deal even with half of the range.
Unfortunately, some think comparisons to Tesla are a bit closer to reality than they sound. But we’ll get back to that in a moment.
The Roadster
This month, Ola has launched pre-orders for its first electric motorcycle, the Roadster series.
The Roadster series consists of three similar motorcycles based on the same modular and scalable architecture. Ola Electric has developed a double cradle frame where the batteries sit where the tank and engine would normally be on a gasser. Under the batteries is a small electric motor and behind that is a swingarm that Ola says can be scaled up or down depending on Ola’s needs.
This new frame supports battery packs ranging from 2.5 kWh each to 7.5 kWh each. It can also handle an 18kW or better motor and Ola uses smart architecture and flat cabling to reduce weight and cost. The motorcycle’s integrated brain allows it to have a hill hold mode, traction control, and cornering ABS. The so-called smart functions of the motorcycle are said to deliver a collision warning system, 5G connectivity, and connected vehicle functions, including a voice assistant. The Roadster even comes with an automatic heated and cooled seat and bars.
Perhaps the wildest of all is the fact that Ola says you’ll be able to play video games from the motorcycle’s LCD display, which sounds pretty unsafe to me.
Alright, so there are three Roadsters. The Roadster is the base model while the Roadster X is the discount model and the Roadster Pro is the flagship.
The standard Roadster has a single disc brake up front and a single disc in the rear plus projector LED headlights, a 6.8-inch display, a 78 mph top speed, and all of the features I noted before. As the chart shows, the biggest battery you can get is 6 kWh, which means 154 overly optimistic miles. Oh, and don’t expect to get back on the road anytime soon because the 6 kWh Roadster takes an excruciating 8 hours to charge.
Here’s a chart to help you figure out what I’m talking about (which you can click to enlarge):
But hey, the Roadster starts at $1,251 for the version with a 3.5 kWh battery, a 72 mph top speed, and 93 miles of range. That’s still a deal. All versions of the normal Roadster get a 17 HP motor. You also get a brake-by-wire system, though Ola doesn’t talk about redundancies.
Step down to the Roadster X and you lose a ton of features. The touchscreen becomes a basic 4.3-inch non-touch display and you lose a security system, hill hold, and you don’t even get a bright headlight. The cost-cutting gets even more aggressive when you realize that Ola also takes away the ABS, active safety systems, and you even get a drum brake in the rear. All versions of the Ola Roadster also come with a rear monoshock except for the Roadster X, which gets twin shocks.
Range figures and battery sizes are just a few ticks off of the regular Roadster, but the motor is detuned to 14 HP. You also cannot get the 6 kWh battery with the Roadster X. The smallest battery is also a 2.5 kWh unit, which gets you 72 miles of range. Again, that’s not bad when you consider that the base price of the Roadster X is a shocking $894. Of course, keep in mind that playing around with exchange rates isn’t always fair, and a U.S. equivalent of this bike would definitely be more expensive. Still, it’s cheap!
Then we get to the Roadster Pro flagship and things start coming off of the rails.
The $3,000 Electric Sport Bike
Things start getting nutty with the Roadster Pro. For starters, its battery is a chunky 16 kWh, or roughly the size of the one powering my Zero long-termer. As I said before, Ola says this battery is good for 360 miles. Of course, I’ll remind you that’s under the very generous Indian test cycle.
But things don’t stop being crazy with the battery. The motor is now cranked up to 70 HP. Now, I wish I could tell you how fast this bike accelerates, but Ola offers only a totally useless acceleration time of 0 mph to 25 mph in 1.2 seconds, which that’s cool, I guess? At least we’re told the top speed is 120 mph, which is properly sporty for an electric motorcycle.
The Roadster Pro also appears to stretch out that scalable platform. It’s larger than its siblings and features dual disc brakes up front. The swingarm of the regular Roadster is also tossed out for a snazzy single-arm unit with a single rotor. The Pro also gets all of the cool features I noted above plus a Race mode for track riding, wheelie control, stoppie control, low-traction modes, and the aforementioned automatic heated and cooled elements. The Pro is topped off with a 10-inch touchscreen with a voice assistant, the ability to play video games, a navigation system, and more.
Pump The Brakes
So here’s where I will be the meanie and cast some doubt.
Let’s start with that range. I get that 360 miles is under the super optimistic Indian Drive Cycle, but even then I’m not really buying it. Consider that my Zero DSR/X tester has a slightly larger battery, yet the best it can do under perfect circumstances (riding extremely slow off-road) is 200 miles. Ola is saying its motorcycle will go 160 more miles despite technically having a slightly smaller battery.
In fairness to Ola, the company says the standard Roadsters will come out early next year while this flagship will be coming out in the fourth quarter of 2026. So hey, the company has more than two years to reach the range it claimed this week. Maybe battery tech will advance that far.
But then we come to that price. Ola Electric says the top-spec Roadster Pro will cost the equivalent of $2,977. As I said before, just converting the currencies of other countries to USD isn’t really fair. But what you can do is compare the prices of other vehicles in the country. Remember that awesome Royal Enfield Classic 350 I bought last year? Right, so that bike costs the equivalent of $2,680 in India.
So Ola says that for just a little bit more than a slow and basic 20 HP Royal Enfield you can buy an electric motorcycle that goes 120 mph and has a huge 16 kWh battery. I think even when you take locality into account the price is suspiciously cheap for what you’re getting. I mean, the Royal Enfield doesn’t have a 10-inch screen with a voice assistant. I believe the projected price even less than I believe the range claim.
Unfortunately, this is where the Tesla comparison comes in. Aggarwal said that the S1 scooter would have Bluetooth, voice commands, cruise control, hill hold, and a mobile app. However, Ola missed its production deadline on the S1 and then put the scooters into production without those features, saying they would come at a later date. Those features did eventually come, but that left a bad taste in the mouths of buyers.
That wasn’t the end of Ola’s problems as forks on its scooters reportedly started breaking off after rough bumps or hard braking events. I don’t have to tell you that it’s dangerous when the whole front end falls off. Indian publication Money Control was especially harsh to Ola as it reported that the company tried to fix the defective forks by offering free “upgrades” rather than an actual recall. Reportedly, Aggarwal blamed the media and the competition for the failure of his company’s products.
But that wasn’t all. Early S1s reportedly suffered from a weird issue of spontaneously switching to reverse mode while the scooters were in forward motion. There’s also a report that real world range doesn’t come close to claims.
This has led to some in India comparing Bhavish Aggarwal to Elon Musk and not in a complimentary way. The two men run successful and influential EV brands but have a knack for making big promises that sometimes don’t make it to production models.
So, it’s hard to tell what’s going to happen here. I mean, all we have are really bad renders and whiffs of vaporware. I have no doubt the Ola Roadster Pro will be an awesome motorcycle if it eventually hits the road. If its specs are anywhere near advertised it would even have the chance of changing the whole electric motorcycle market. But I’m not going to hold my breath for it, and there isn’t even word if it’s coming to the States.
(All bad renders: Ola Electric)
The battery alone will cost that much.
I scratch my head at designs that house the battery where the fuel tank would have been on an ICE. Why would you want that weight up so high? There must be an opportunity here to innovate on packaging when using a new technology.
It’s worth mentioning that although 2.5 lakh rupee converts to less than $3k USD, this is a great example of why direct currency conversions don’t always work. That is a lot of money in India for a motorcycle. I think there are some cars you can buy brand new for around 3-4 lakh rupees. You can buy a lot of very decent (though slow by US standards) petrol bikes for under 1 lakh rupees.
Moreover, in India, even on the highways, speed limits are much slower. I think some long highways in rural areas might have up to 100 km/h limits, but more commonly you see 50 km/h. And of course, in places like Bengaluru, I could totally see a 500+ km range being possible because going over 30 km/h is a rarity. The base model with over 100 km range would be more than sufficient in that city. I saw a lot of electric bikes over there and some of them are really cheap, so the prices for the 3.5 kWh version seem inline with the market.
I suspect if you brought the 18 kWh version to the US and drove it at US speeds, the range would be half or less than using the Indian test cycle.
I was thinking the same, that the “certification speed” is like 20km/h.
But anyho, if it’s even remotedly *safe, would make a decent commuter bike.
*There was a trend 10 years a go of people ordering these 50cc “pit bikes” from china directly. They didn’t have any suspension, no brakes to speak of, 3 clutches as spare and price of 100€. Obviously they were not even remotely street legal, but still people hooned them. I would claim that’s just Darwinism at its finest.
Well, safety on motorbikes isn’t exactly comparable to vehicle safety, but whereas people focus on the lack of safety on those 3 lakh cars, the safety needs in India are very different when the maximum speed you might go on occasion is 50 km/h whereas in the US we regularly drive at 100+ km/h. Probably half of the petrol cars over there are CNG conversions which would be a super bad idea in the US but is fine in India because no one is getting rear-ended at US highway speeds.
If by motorbike safety we mean suspension, I suspect this will be fine. Indian roads are… inconsistent. No one is going to be riding around on a bike with no suspension.
I mean it’s structurally suitable for road use, all the bearings, etc, do not suddenly disintegrate from road rubbish, there’s some sort of suspension that also can take actual use and is rated for necessary weight and the brakes are know and safe items.
With that price one kinda wonders how many corners have been cut.
I visited india (hyderabad) ’13 for 3 weeks (work trip). I have to say that the traffic is weird, both super sketsy looking, but somehow it seems to function in relatively safely. Kinda like polar opposite of US or French traffic.
Considering the motorcycle is going to be manufactured in India, I’m hoping that the amount they’re going to save in labor is enough to ensure the components are of suitable quality.
Regarding the traffic – right!? Like it’s terrifying at first, but then it somehow all seems to work, and even though everyone is constantly honking, the drivers are all simultaneously calm. I never saw any road rage.
it will do ~100miles at highway speeds like every electric motorcycle even with a big battery. the range is way enough for most commute especially if you can plug somewhere, and way too short for any long distance unless you wanna spend half the time charging. because physics. ut if they can do it 85% cheaper than the completion, good on them. I’ll believe it when I see it. currently it’s not even the battery cost
I’ll save you some money, just give me the bike for free without the battery and we’re good
“Go ahead, send us your money, no problem.”
Maybe that’s the total cumulative miles of battery life before it’s no longer capable of recharging.
Maybe we are really over paying for stuff?
Although that doesn’t solve the range question.
I suspect the labor cost is less over there.
Time will tell I guess
That frame scares me a little. The rear swingarm and rear shock mount look perilously light duty.
inb4 Toecutter schools us, but-
shouldn’t electric motorcycles be focusing more on aero? What about recumbent form factor?
Aerodynamics is always going to be a problem for motorcycles. Recumbent motorcycles are a non-starter for most riders, including me. They don’t appear comfortable. They also seem dangerous. Being able to see and be seen is critical for rider safety. Being low to the ground, your visibility will be compromised and other motorists will struggle to see you. That sounds terrifying.
The problem with motorcycle aerodynamics is that the rider is exposed. It is easy to alter the shape of the front end of a car to be more aerodynamic. It is far harder to alter the shape of me to be more aerodynamic. I’m sure aerodynamic tweaks could improve efficiency, but it is going to be low yield. The only realistic solution is higher capacity batteries.
You could alter yourself by being fatter and fill in the gaps for better air stream.
I figure there has to be something like a Laffer Curve to describe the returns of this strategy. Added portliness is good up to a point. Then, the strain of the extra weight offsets any gains in aerodynamic efficiency.
Honestly, I’m think I’m already at a near-optimal level of portliness for aerodynamic efficiency.
Throwing this in the comment for anyone who hasn’t seen it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uk2ou5gt_94
Ryan F9 breaking down why the Electrom feet-forward motorcycle is baller.
realistic as a 1000lbs/30k motorcycle?
I agree with the aero problem. the only realistic solution is
-improve aero as much as possible (forget the classic motorcycle, like the 250mph hollow electric motorcycle, )
-speed up charging
-battery swaping
-lower expectations (commuter motorcycles)
right now a touring electric motorcycle is impossible/pointless
When I started reading and saw that it’d be a scalable platform, I expected something like:
“The new Autopian Jorp DT, pictured below, offers unmatched off-road performance, with 12 inches of ground clearance* and 450 horsepower**, starting at just 17,000 USD***!
*only available with the Trenchfoot off-road package
**Only when equipped with the Family of Cats power package
***As shown 65,000 USD featuring Mr. Hollywood trim”
The Trenchfoot off-road package needs to be a thing.
Every spec is vaporware until an actual product is released to an outside party…
Maybe if you have a 350 mile long extension cord.
Brilliant! Save labor cost by taking advantage of the gender pay gap!
The front fell off ?
That’s not very typical
It’s ok. It was outside the environment.
It’s hard to take a company seriously when they make claims like this. I mostly skimmed this article because I’m not interested in reading about a product that is a complete fantasy.
There is a greater likelihood I will become a billionaire trading dogecoin futures than I will be able to buy a 120 MPH 360-mile range electric motorcycle for $3,000.
If this thing goes on sale for $2,977 with the listed specs I’ll sell all of my cars, drive a Toyota Corolla, and import one of these things from India. That’s how much I don’t believe in it.
To be clear, I wrote this mainly because the claims are so freaking out there. Like, I know vaporware isn’t all that rare, but at least the companies try to make claims that could be true. This is just like…I’m not even sure. Might as well say it has jets and transforms into a plane.
Now THAT I would buy.
…in 2 years
I get frustrated with obviously ridiculous claims about EVs. We (and probably all who are reading this) know this company’s claim is absurd. But a lot of people n the general public do not. My concern is this sets unrealistic and unmeetable expectations for consumers. If someone hears that a company is planning an EV that has 1,000 miles of range, charges in 10 minutes, and costs $15,000, they will be disappointed in literally every EV they are able to buy now and for the foreseeable future. That can’t be good for EV adoption. As someone who likes EVs and thinks it is important to transition away from fossil fuels in the coming decades, I don’t like seeing things that are detrimental to EV adoption.
To be clear, I’m not criticizing you for writing about this. I am being critical of those who make these completely absurd claims. They have to know these claims are, at best, highly aspirational, yet the general public does not know that.
Title of future article:
“An Indian company actually followed through on their claims… and now I need to sell all my cars and drive a Corolla”
What Mercedes isn’t saying is it’s a GR Corolla. She knows a guy who could probably cut a deal.
On one hand: RIP me.
On the other hand: Imagine the tens of dollars I’ll have in my pocket after selling all of my worthless cars!
Downhill with a tailwind !
Down Everest
I’ve been waiting for a 2-wheeled EV that meets what I call “the rule of 55”. A practical range of 55 miles, speed of 55 mph, for $5500 (OTD). These bikes meet or exceed those figures. I’d pick one tomorrow, if they were on sale in the US.
I got a Zero S from Copart that’ll do 100MPH and 100-200mi of range for around $6,000 so it’s do-able…
Was it ridable at $6,000? I got an 8,000 mile DSR for only $10k, but right before Rich Rebuilds popularized disassembling the bikes to power other things.
Hadn’t known about the Rich Rebuilds thing, there goes the cheap Copart ones. Mine was in “start & drive” condition but was missing a footpeg and a front brake master cylinder. Easy enough to get parts cheap from af1racing.com though.
Ryvid Outset comes damn close: $5,995 and real world range reviews say 35 miles of range at 75 mph so 55 miles at 55mph is within a shout. Additionally, the anthem (their first model which is basically the anthem plus a few bells and whistles) is a real bike you can actually buy and has been delivered to real people. Plus the battery is user removable!
Mr. Aggarwal has so blatantly copied Elon Musk’s marketing handbook, he even called the thing the friggin’ Roadster!
If you changed all the units from miles to kilometers, I might believe the claims (360km range is 224 miles and 120km/h is 75mph). There is no way to mathematically make the battery capacity at that price feasible though.
The bad part about that is I already converted the range from kilometers to miles, so you’re already seeing the low number. Oof!
!!! You need to import one for testing ala the Changli