One of the leading electric mobility startups, Baaz Bikes, introduces its new generation electric vehicle ecosystem in India. Making the adoption of green mobility faster for gig delivery riders with safety and convenience, the company has launched its first ‘Made-in- India’ Smart-Rugged Electric Scooters along with Intelligent Swappable Batteries, an Automated Battery Swapping Network, and Fleet Management Tools, at the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.
With the aim to bring cost-effective and innovative solutions to the two-wheeler logistic market in India, Baaz Bikes has launched a purpose-built electric scooter, especially for gig workers to meet their daily mobility needs. Designed and developed by the in-house team, the electric scooter is priced aggressively at Rs. 35,000* (ex-showroom price, Delhi), maintaining the ruggedness and safety of gig delivery riders. The effective price of the scooter has been brought down significantly by separating the battery from the electric scooter, making it much more economical for gig riders.
The buyers can rent electric scooters from the authorised Rental Partner Network of Baaz. Baaz will sell these scooters to small-scale dealerships where gig delivery riders can rent them, empowering micro-entrepreneurs in line with the vision of ‘Local for Vocal’. The Baaz Swapping Network will work on the pay-as-you-move model, which will further lower the daily cost of usability for gig delivery riders.
Speaking on the occasion, Mr Anubhav Sharma, Chief Executive Officer, Baaz Bikes, said, “As a leading promoter of sustainable mobility, our vision is to bring high-quality products and develop an advanced ecosystem with utmost safety and complete satisfaction for the gig riders. All our products and services are designed & developed in-house to bring prominent solutions for the riders on the road such as range anxiety, easy access to charging and lower running expenses. At present, we are operating with a cluster approach, where we launch our vehicles within a radius of 4-5 km in Delhi. In the next 8 months, we aim to replicate this model in multiple clusters to achieve density and blanket the entire Delhi with the Baaz Ecosystem, maintaining the high utilisation of the network. As the network grows, it will open new opportunities for us to address a wider audience.”
On EV prospects and the company’s vision, Mr. Shubham Srivastava, Chief Technology Officer, Baaz Bikes, said “Each of our design ideologies stems from some unique insight obtained from ground reality. The commercial segment has a lot of rough usage which impacts the overall condition of the vehicle if not maintained well. While designing the product, our key focus was to develop an electric scooter which can meet the operational challenges and stand as a strong partner for gig riders. Considering the present need and demand of the riders, we decided to make a strong metallic exoskeleton that encloses everything and that too, an elegant one. Further, the scooter is also enabled with the latest technology to provide necessary support at the time of deliveries.”
The delivery segment in India is characterised by extreme daily usage of 100+ km and the least tolerance to vehicle downtime. Even during an impact, the Baaz scooter’s high-strength steel exoskeleton protects the chassis and the intelligent proprietary components enclosed within this structure, and the proprietary suspension makes potholes less jerky and gives the vehicle an extraordinarily long life even in commercial use.
Baaz Energy Pods come with a bunch of safety features recommended by AIS 156 as a standard, making them thermal management flame retardant. They also have an IP 68 rating, making them waterproof and shockproof in normal conditions.
The Automated Swapping Network charges the batteries in a proprietary thermally controlled environment, which increases the battery life significantly. The Swapping Network can be accessed by an RFID card issued by the company and can dispense a charged battery in less than 90 seconds. The company is working towards charging infrastructure using its unique business model, ensuring more than 80% utilisation of the Baaz Swap Network from day 1.
Baaz’s proprietary fault detection and preventive management system senses any incident of fire or water logging and averts any accident. The system comes with features like Anti-Vandalism and Anti-Theft to prevent any unauthorised usage.
SPECIFICATION FOR BAAZ SCOOTER: The Baaz scooter is designed for a daily usage of more than 100km, putting emphasis on the vehicle ergonomics for the riders comfort and safety during longer rides.
- With a height of 730mm and wheelbase of 1170mm designed as per 95% Indian Male makes it a comfortable ride.
- The overall dimensions of the Scooter are intentionally kept on the smaller side measuring, L-1624mm | W-680mm | H-1052mm to beat the traffic.
- No need for registration, Baaz Scooter is a Slow Speed Scooter with a maximum speed of 25 kmph.
- Keeping in mind, the comfort of the Rider, the dual fork hydraulic suspension setup is provided in front along with a dual shock absorbers at rear.
- The scooter is completely keyless overcoming the hassles of twisting the keys
- Turn the scooter on or off effortlessly, unlock the seat and find my scooter button help locate the scooter in a messy Parking.
- Range estimation shows the user, exact kms the scooter can ride with current battery charge, which is not a usual site in this price category of Scooters.
SPECIFICATIONS FOR ENERGY PODS: Energy Pods or Baaz batteries are a combination of Lithium Ion cells enclosed in an Aluminium casing. It comes with an in-house designed Battery Management System, which ensures the safety and reliability in all usages and conditions.
- A handy swappable battery with a weight of 8.2 Kg
- Dimensions of the battery are L-180mm | W-119mm | H-335mm
- Energy density of 1028 Wh
- Impact-resistant housing and cover
- IP 68 rated, waterproof and splash proof under normal circumstances.
- Proprietary thermal management system designed to ensure safe operations even over 45 oC ambient temperature, specifically designed to suit Indian conditions.
- Blind mating battery connection to ensure minimal human interaction hence minimizing damage with a poka-yoke design.
- CAN 2.0 enabled communication based on top of a proprietary application layer
- GPS enabled for real-time battery tracking as well as vehicle tracking
- Baaz batteries are electronically encrypted and can be charged only inside the Baaz Swap (Baaz swapping station). This ensures that the batteries are always charged inside the cooled battery compartments ensuring 2000 charge/discharge cycles.
- The battery comes with an in-house developed Battery Management System which has the following features
- Over voltage protection
- Under voltage protection
- Over temperature protection
- Under temperature protection
- Overcurrent protection
- Resettable short circuit protection
SPECIFICATIONS FOR BAAZ BATTERY SWAPPING NETWORK: The swap-based Energy Network has been designed with the ideology of making the machine completely automated. To promote human-less operations, we had to reinvent the concepts around theft and vandalism as well to make sure that the machine is immune to all extreme weathers across India.
- Dimensions L-950mm | W-820mm | H-1790mm
- Dedicated Power of 10 kW
- Comes with nine battery recharging compartments.
- Swap slots designed for Indian user height with blind mate connectors for effortless battery swapping.
- Completely automated machine, accessible by RFID card
- All metal body to discourage any vandalism
- Display reinforced with an unbreakable Polycarbonate sheet
- Anti-tamper fasteners used along with multiple layers of disassembly
- All weather IP 65 rated to withstand rains and dust.
- Dedicated 300 mm height within the machine to make it immune to water logging issues
- 4G LTE IoT enabled for real-time data monitoring
- Water sensor to disable AC power in times of any water ingress and communicating the same on the server
- Smoke sensor to disable the AC power in times of any possible smoke/fire and communicating the same on the server
- Dedicated refrigeration unit for thermally controlled charging enhancing the battery life to 2000 cycles.
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