I am looking to buy a first scooter for my daughter, who is just learning to ride. She is around 4 ft 10 inches tall, and her expected monthly running will be approximately 300 km. We are open to both electric and petrol scooters. Could you please suggest the best options that are easy to handle, comfortable for shorter riders, and safe for beginners?

autocar.india

•4d

Since you have had a long and drama-free stint with your Shine, the logical next step to make would be the Honda Unicorn. For your use case, which is mostly inside the city with short weekend leisure rides, the Unicorn makes for a good fit. It will offer a noticeable step up in performance and comfort compared to the Shine with only a small drop-off in fuel economy. The Royal Enfield Bullet 350 is lovely if you want a relaxed bike with new-age reliability and old-school feel, but since you have mentioned you are on the slimmer side of the spectrum, its weight could be a problem at slower speeds and its fuel economy will also be noticeably lower.If your landlord and the building you reside in, don't have a problem with you installing a charging solution at home, you can consider electric scooters like TVS iQube, Bajaj Chetak, Ather Rizta and Vida VX2. If not, stick with a petrol-powered bike for now.To decide between the Unicorn and Bullet, we'd recommend a test ride of both since they are very different machines.

autocar.india

•5d

The Orbiter is a sensible electric scooter that focuses on maximising range and practicality, and of the two options, the Orbiter will be the safer bet in the long run. Do bear in mind that the Orbiter's performance is quite mellow, especially in Eco mode, and if your daily commute involves a lot of flyovers or riding in hilly regions, then you will have to use the scooter in City mode as well as keep the throttle pinned. The Ampere Magnus will likely be a bit more affordable, but in the real world, small quality-related niggles are more common than they should be, and after-sales can be patchy depending on your city.One thing to watch with the Orbiter is that the top 3.1kWh variant's price will be over Rs. 1 lakh on-road in your city, so you may have to stretch your budget by a small amount.If stretching your budget is simply not an option and you must have an EV from a reputed brand, choose the Hero Vida VX2 Go 3.4, which should give you enough range and performance.Try to take test rides of the Orbiter and VX2 before you make your decision.

autocar.india

•6d

If you leave your scooter idle for many weeks at a time, then the safest option to preserve charge in your battery would be to disconnect it, remove it and keep it in storage. Another option if you don't want to go through that hassle, is to give scooter keys to a trusted friend or family member and ask them to start it once in 10 days or a fortnight and let it idle for 10-15 minutes. You should also ask your nearest authorised Suzuki dealership if they will retrofit the kick starter on your ABS-equipped Access and most likely it should be doable for a small amount. Other scooters which also don't have kick starters on the top variants have the option of fitting the kick back for a small amount. Coming to the query of an E85-compatible Access, there's no news on the horizon of a flex fuel variant of the popular scooter launching anytime soon.