At the media ride event of the Ola S1 Air electric scooter, the company also let us have a go with its new Gen 2 S1 Pro, albeit for a short duration within the factory premises.
The new Ola S1 Pro Gen 2 is based on Ola’s new Gen 2 platform that also underpins the S1 Air. That means that the Ola S1 Pro also comes with a telescopic front fork and with a flat floorboard. Unlike the drum-brake-only S1 Air, this scooter gets disc brakes at both ends and a monoshock rear suspension set-up. The rear section now uses a conventional dual sided swingarm which doesn’t look as nice or well finished as the original S1 Pro which had a horizontally mounted monoshock and exposed rear wheel on the right side.
The underseat boot has now been reduced by 2-litres, but this 34-litre space is still cavernous, flat and a big plus point on this scooter. Seat height has gone up by 5 mm to 805mm and ground clearance has reduced marginally from 163 mm to 160mm.
The redesigned motor now produces a lower continuous power output of 5kW (vs 5.5kW on the Gen 1 model), but a higher peak power of 11kW (vs 8.5kW) Ola claims top speed is now 120kph (vs 115kph) and that the acceleration times are now slightly quicker as well. The S1 Pro was always the fastest made-in-India scooter and this one appears to be faster still.
The battery pack remains 4kWh, but Ola says that improved software has helped increase range The company now claims a 180km range in Eco mode (vs 170km) and 143km in Normal mode (vs 135km).
Chassis optimization has also helped reduce weight, going down by 5kilos to 116kg. The scooter still ships with a 750watt portable charger and Ola claims the same 6.5 hours charge time from zero to full. The 7-inch TFT display also remains but it is now a lower resolution unit (800*480 vs 1280*768).
We got to briefly ride the S1 Pro Gen 2 and the performance is undoubtedly strong. While it's hard to say if it is faster than before without back to back tests, the scooter is excitingly quick in its Hyper mode. But how long that performance can be sustained remains to be seen. Our time with the S1 Air revealed that like the original S1 Pro from 2021, it also faces thermal-based performance restrictions after about 10-15 minutes of sustained fast riding.
What is clear is that the poorly calibrated accelerator responses continue. The scooter takes a moment to respond to your inputs and then continues to accelerate for about half a second after you close the accelerator. Couple this with the motor being cut off the moment you touch the brakes and it becomes tricky to perform tight manoeuvres smoothly.
Based on our experience with the S1 Air, suspension comfort should be improved but this will have to be confirmed. As we mentioned in our S1 Air review, quality and fit/finish stands to improve and our particular unit produced a clearly audible rattle from the front suspension over the paver block surface within the Ola facility. Other scooters, including the S1 Air units that we rode did not have this issue.
The Gen 2 Ola S1 Pro now starts at Rs 1.47 lakh which represents a hike of around seven thousand rupee over the first generation product. The company says that deliveries will start in mid-September and we’ll bring you a detailed review when we get to put the scooter through our full test cycle.
Gavin Rodrigues
Dinshaw Magol
