When it comes to family scooters, most startups miss the point entirely. Their scooters focus on superficial features, leading to compromise on the basics of a family scooter. The Ampere Nexus is the Indian startup’s newest offering in the premium family scooter space and it tries to stick to the basics – promising to offer ample seat and storage space and a powertrain that offers a fine balance between performance and efficiency. In short, the Nexus claims to be an all-rounder. We spent some time with the scooter to gauge these claims.
When it comes to styling, family scooters prefer to be conservative or in the case of electric family scooter’s, moderately conservative. The Ampere Nexus sticks with convention, with its clean lines and large body panels. Underneath though, is clever engineering in the form of vents where air is channeled from behind the front wheel through the bodywork before exiting through vents below the tail lamp. This airflow helps cool the battery and motor. No gimmicks here. Just plain ol’ engineering. It gets a premium-looking LED headlamp with LED DRLs, and flush-fitting LED turn indicators on the front apron. The LED tail lamp and turn indicators are housed inside a transparent plastic housing. We liked the flush-fitting pillion footpegs that are easy to open, and close with a satisfying click. In case you’re wondering, the Nexus comes in four colours – Zanskar Aqua, Lunar White, Steel Grey and Indian Red.
The Nexus focuses on space management. It gets a 712mm long seat that is one of the largest in its class besides being accessible with its low 765mm height. While it has a large 235mm floorboard that can hold a gas cylinder, we wished for more underseat storage space – while the 24-litre storage bin is deep, it could do with more width. It also has a bottle holder on the front apron.
Quality-wise, the Nexus impresses with its fit and finish levels and paint job but the quality of plastics in some places could be better. For example, the plastic flap covering the charging port and retractable storage hook on the front apron feels flimsy to operate.
While the Nexus does not break new ground, it comes with important ones like all-LED lighting and a 7-inch colour TFT instrument console. While the console does not have the premium feel of some of its rivals, it has a clean layout with responsive touch input. You can access the controls on the go via the switchgear. The switchgear though isn’t as intuitive as the conventional ones we are used to and takes time to figure out, especially on the go. The screen offers Bluetooth and Wifi connectivity with the Ampere app enabling turn-by-turn navigation and music controls from the switchgear.
Power comes from a 4kW mid-mounted electric motor that sends power to the rear wheel via a belt drive. The scooter is powerful enough to keep you entertained but more importantly, with 16 degrees of gradability, it can climb up most inclines you’d encounter in the city, with a full load. The Nexus gets three riding modes – Eco, City and Power – besides Limp Home and reverse modes. Performance is brisk in City and Power mode with the scooter accelerating quickly to 40kmph with performance tapering off only post 60kmph. Claimed top speed is 93kmph which is quite good for a family electric scooter.
It gets a 3kWh Lithium Iron Phosphate battery that is claimed to be 1.3 times safer than conventional Lithium Ion battery packs besides being denser as well. Claimed range is 136km and we managed to eke out 100km of range while mostly riding in City and Power modes. Claimed charging time of 3.3 hours is impressive as well.
The Ampere Nexus gets a robust frame that claims to be four times stronger than its competitors. It gets robust suspension components as well, consisting of telescopic forks and dual shock absorbers. While the 12-inch wheels help tackle potholes and speed breakers, we felt the suspension was a tad soft for our liking. It does feel top-heavy as well but nothing too extreme. What the scooter impresses with is its durability and ability to take on loads and given the scooter’s record of being driven 10,000km across India without a breakdown, should be reliable to boot.
The Ampere Nexus is available at an introductory price of Rs 1.1 lakh for the EX variant and 1.2 lakh for the ST variant (Both prices ex-showroom). These prices are on par with the lower variants of its competitors which makes the Ampere Nexus come across as a no-nonsense, value-for-money scooter. It does have its rough edges which once ironed out, will make the Ampere Nexus a hard-to-beat scooter.
