The suspension is magic! I don’t know how they managed to tune it so perfectly for our roads but they did it and it works great.
BHPian v4run recently shared this with other enthusiasts.
Inception
I was handed down my big brother’s pulsar 150 ug2 (2005) and there started my 2-wheeler journey, it was an old bike and obviously, it had issues right from the start. It sucked my wallet and me being a student at the time doing side hustles did not help. I was very intrigued by the EV space from the start, I was following the space very closely, looking at all the new launches. Then one day my friend bought the first gen Ather 450x. I loved it from the start, its instant pickup and the compactness of it, made it so much easier to drive it in the city. It was a practical machine that just made sense. One year later another friend in the group bought the Gen 2, and 6 months after that another friend bought it, all the while the first guy completed around 20k kms in 15-17 months, I was simply amazed by the savings. I was now almost daily riding the Ather in some way or the other, and meanwhile spending so much money on my pulsar, I love my pulsar but I hate it just as much. It is very expensive to run, returning 30 kmpl at its best, at 9 hp it was nowhere near fast, I was always on full throttle, I could go on all day ranting about it. One day the engine broke down and it cost me 16k out of my pocket, it was too much for me, and I was now actively searching for an EV to buy, I then graduated and got into a job and now was earning properly. My monthly fuel expenses were upwards of 6000 and on top of it the never-ending repairs of the pulsar, I simply had enough.
Choosing the perfect EV for me!
My daily commute is about 50 kms and it consists of open roads and jam packed traffic sections, I needed something that could go fast and be good in traffic. All the fingers pointed towards Ather 450x, when my friends bought it, it was somewhere around 1.5-1.6L on road here in Hyderabad but now it costs 1.8L on road, which is way over my budget and I simply could not justify the price, I put it on hold and was waiting for other EVs to launch like the River Indie and the Simple One, the latter checked all the boxes and I was honestly waiting for it to come to Hyderabad (It still didn’t and now I have no hopes) I took test ride of the Ola S1 pro, the test drive vehicle had close to 10k kms on the ODO and the scooty was in shambles, all the parts were shaking and loose and the throttle was my breaking point. The scooty is a marketed phony unicorn, it has nothing going for it, I am very amazed that it sells so much despite having such a bad rep. When you buy a vehicle you immediately buy into the experience provided by the company and this doubles down for EV companies. TVS iqube is a great scooter but it is not really targeted towards a younger audience so I skipped on it. Hero Vida was mostly in the shadows they had poor marketing and their launch event didn’t really make waves in the market, with its high initial cost everybody simply forgot about it and no one bought it, they have very few dealerships in a city like Hyderabad and having no charging points was not helping.
When someone sees an Ather charger being used it automatically registers in their brain and positively assures them. I guess the charger network is a huge reason for Ather sales despite its high cost.
Buying the Hero Vida
On 7th October I saw Hero Vida V1 pro listed at a whopping 30k discount. I didn’t think twice I simply ordered it at an ex-showroom price of 1,15,999. It was a sweet deal even at 1,45,999 but it did not make me instantly want to buy it. On Saturday I get a call from the showroom if I want to confirm my purchase and I say yes. Then the next day the price drops even lower to 1,05,999 (instant shock), I tried a lot to cancel and re-buy but it was just not possible but I’m not really worried about that 10k difference because I know I will save that money in like 2 months XD. The showroom person (let’s call him John) John calls me on Saturday and asks when I would like to get the delivery, I tell him as soon as possible, an important detail I forgot to mention is that the dealerships are very few and the one I ordered from was on the opposite corner of the city from where I live and from my work, there was an option to choose the dealer but I overlooked this in a hurry. It is not possible for me to go to the dealership at the drop of a hat, I even informed this to john saying I live far away and coming here frequently is not possible, So I call him on sunday and tell him that I will come and take PDI and confirm my color (I booked matte blue) and the vehicle I want, apparently PDI is a foreign concept to John and he thought it meant looking at the display vehicle and conforming the color. I reach the showroom and John greets me all is well he says he has some work please wait.
I proceed to look at display vehicles and fiddle with them, After a while he comes and asks is the PDI done. I had no words, I proceed to explain him what PDI actually means and he then states that it is not possible as the garage is closed, I was very disappointed but one good thing came out of it as I saw the matte blue in flesh I did not really like it and the gloss black looked really dusty (hard to maintain), white was clean looking and it was a good choice. I told John I will be taking delivery of the matte white and I will come tomorrow in the evening and take delivery
Delivery experience
I called John in the morning and reminded him that I will drop by at 5, keep everything ready, he responded positively, I call him again after lunch and remind him to keep everything ready and he says you just have to sign and take your bike away, I start from my office and call him that I will reach in an hour please keep everything ready, he says everything is ready just come and take your bike home.
I enter the dealership meet John and get told that nothing is ready, it then took them 3 hours to wash the bike and get it ready and in the end of it, no documents were done(Invoice, Insurance, TR), I went home with a delivery slip. It was practically illegal to drive it on public roads. I then keep pestering them for the documents from the very next day and it took them 1 whole week to send the insurance and invoice papers, the TR was still missing!
I keep calling John every other day to complete my permanent registration, he always replies with “tomorrow pakka”. I really lost all hope on that dealership. I even completed my first service before the permanent registration was done.
The Hero Vida V1 Pro
I will try to summarize the good and the bad as best as I can. It cost me 1,15,999 + 15,000 for insurance etc(4000 for extended warranty I will talk on this later)
The first time I started the scooty and tried to go home from the showroom, it kept going into limp home mode, literally the first time I lay my hands on my EV, it throws a fit. One person from the service center comes and simply restarts the scooty and it runs fine. So anyways I go home that day mostly using Eco mode sometimes Ride, I didn’t ride the scooty hard the very first day as it was very late and I was pretty tired. I get home and charge the batteries to 100%.
The next day, This is the day I explore and fiddle with everything I see, try out every feature the vehicle has.
The Vida V1 pro has 4 kwh battery (2 kwh each), the removable batteries are the main selling point. The ride was super comfortable but only for a short period of time. The buttons were very sticky from day 1 and I accepted to live with it. I will list out the pros and the cons and then summarize as best as I can.
Pros
- The suspension simply absorbs everything and is super stable.
- Removable batteries
- No junk UI
- Ability to change riding modes while on the throttle (Ather can’t do this)
- The tyres ( MRF Zapper-G)
- Hidden Storage Spaces, Huge plus for me
- The massive boot space
- Cruise control
Cons
- The horrible seat
- My Vida App
- Split seat
- Only has turn-by-turn navigation
- Connectivity issues
- Can’t fit a full-face helmet with the massive boot space
- No accessories
- Public fast charging doesn’t work
- Sticky switch gear
- The real-world range!
- Rear drum brake
The suspension is magic! I don’t know how they managed to tune it so perfectly for our roads but they did it and it works great. I live in a rented apartment and removable batteries are a godsend. I don’t have to ask for permission to install a plug near my parking area and explain everything to everybody, they are a little heavy but you build good traps that way. Each pack weighs about 10 kg and I’d say they are pretty manageable carrying one in each hand. The UI of the scooter is commendable, very minimal but shows all the necessary details. When I used to drive my friends’ Ather I was always complaining about how you have to let go of the throttle to change the riding mode, it’s not the case with Vida but the switch isn’t 2 way meaning you can’t go to the previous riding mode, you have to cycle through all of them to go back. I think the most under-appreciated point in a new bike is the tyres, people only notice them when they are bad, Vida has a different version of MRF Zappers compared to the Ather(Zapper-G instead of the N).
I readily observed these worked better because the tyres on the Ather don’t. Zapper-G have a good grip and they do what they are meant to do, more than sufficient with the power and brakes Vida has to offer. This is a quirky design and it has its quirks, the front panels are removable and have a hidden storage compartment (not secure but no one knows about it). Every time I show anybody the under-seat storage, all of them have the same reaction, that boot is huge! I am used to driving a bike so I never use it. Cruise control is something that you will appreciate only after using it, I used to make fun of it saying what is the use? there is always traffic, you will never even bother using it. But I use it every single day now. It takes off so much pressure from your wrist, every time I have a little bit of open road I use cruise control, set it at ~60 and enjoy the ride.
The cons are something you easily start to live with and don’t even notice them on a daily basis except one.
The SEAT. I am very shocked to see how no media person has mentioned this but that seat is horrid. Any commute more than 15 kms and you will know why. I think the decision to have a split seat and a large boot space might be the culprits here. The cushion is very bad, I am no expert so I can’t really describe why and how but the seat seems soft but it isn’t. I commute a minimum of 50 kms a day and they were horrible. I simply went to the local market and got a rubber foam stuck to it, now the seat height has increased but the problem isn’t there anymore. It cost me 1300 rupees and he did jugaad at best, I would not recommend doing what I did, the cushion job is irreversible because he glued the rubber foam on top of the original seat. Add on the fact that some genius in Hero thought having a split seat would be a great idea makes it even worse. The seat just doesn’t like to close. It is a hassle to close it. You need 2 hands to close the seat, you hold the back part and put pressure in the middle to close it, this is not practical when you are carrying 2 heavy batteries in your hands and the fun part is that because it is designed the way it is, a lot of water goes in the under seat storage when it rains or when you wash it.
Hero tried to solve a problem which didn’t exist and created 10 new ones. The Vida app doesn’t work and always keeps disconnecting, I just don’t bother with it. I have 0 use for it. Hero should learn from Ather in this regard. The Vida has a huge screen and they couldn’t integrate maps like the Ather, this is something I never use so I have no complaints here. While other EVs have a SIM, Vida doesn’t and this leads to a lot of connectivity issues. The boot space is massive and yet you still can’t fit a proper helmet in this. I tried with Axor Apex, Vega Bolt and Studds Drifter, only half helmets fit in snug. It has been more than a year since the Vida was launched and still they have no accessories for this, not even a floor mat. I purchased one in the local market for 150/- and it does the job. They have something called a Y connecter mentioned on their website and that is simply a split for the batteries to charge simultaneously rather than having them charge one after the other. I asked the dealer and the company helpline, but no one had a clue. I got a screen guard from Amazon nothing fancy.
The fast charging stations need the My Vida app to charge the scooter. The app doesn’t work hence the chargers don’t work. It should be seamless like the Ather. I don’t understand why we can’t charge at Ather fast charging stations, what is the point of having the same charging ports if you can’t use them? The switch gear is sticky to the point that it goes into parking mode on its own. The buttons are not smooth but I have learnt to live with it. The throttle seems a little sticky too but all EVs have some or the other issue with their throttle. IDC claimed range is 160 km, Hero says 110 km real-world range but the reality is somewhere around 80-90 km at best. The eco mode is topped out at 45 kmph so you end up using ride mode all the time and the range drops even further. My use case is not above 80 km a day so I’m good. I am surprised that manufacturers still give us drum brakes. Disc brakes are simply superior in every way, the braking would have been a lot better if they gave us rear disc brake. The rear brake is so bad that the vehicle moves even with the rear brake on. I use front brakes for the most part and only use rear ones to balance out the braking. The mirrors are useless and hit other vehicles in traffic, so I got rid of them.
The vehicle comes with 3 years of warranty as standard and you can extend 2 more years by paying 4k. THe vehicle has no decals on it and feels plain just my 2 cents, everybody has their own taste. Although I mentioned a lot of problems with the EV I really have no complaints, it works and it saves me money and I don’t care about the rest. I just wish I bought an EV sooner.
My advice would be to get an EV only when you have a dependable petrol vehicle as a backup. You never know when you have to leave on the spot and if the EV isn’t charged sufficiently then it’s a headache. Having an EV for daily commutes makes the most sense right now with these fuel prices and I would recommend getting one.
I completed 1000 km in about 20 days and the first service was nothing really. He simply cleaned the rear brakes and checked for software issues (there were none) washed it and gave it back to me. I went there on a busy day and this ordeal took me 3 hrs while could’ve been done in 30 mins.
It cost me 100 rupees for the first service and 1000 extra for the ladies footrest. I am happy with my purchase, feel free to ask me anything and everything and I will try my best to reply
Keyword: My Hero Vida V1 Pro: An honest opinion after 1000 km & 20 days