Bounce, a smart mobility solution company has announced its soon to be launched electric scooter, the Infinity. With the electric scooter market in India on the rise and getting highly competitive with companies like Ola entering the industry, along with capable EVs like the Ather 450X being the flagbearer of the upcoming future, companies need to stand out with stronger networks and more user-friendly ways of charging the EVs. With a focus on exactly that, Bounce is launching a swappable battery pack on its new scooter with the ‘battery as a service’ programme.
What is the battery as a service, you may ask? Well, that is the most important bit, but before that, Bounce Infinity will feature a removable Lithium-ion battery, which can be pulled out of the vehicle and be charged portably. If you feel like this sounds familiar, well, Revolt Motors offers the same functionality on its RV400 and RV300.
Now to the more interesting bit, the meat of the matter as you may say is the ‘Battery as a service’ option that will enable the potential customers to buy the EV without the battery pack, yes, you read it right! With this option, the buying cost of the Bounce Infinity will reduce by a massive margin, as a big percentage of what an EV costs is the cost of the battery pack.
Now how does that work? So what Bounce plans to do is, to make a comprehensive battery-swapping network, in which the customers, instead of owning a battery and charging it every time the power is over, can just swap discharged batteries with charged ones from the network and pay for the same.
This way of owning EVs would make it not only cost-effective but also reduce the risk of owning batteries that might not hold an optimum charge with regular usage of the same. Depending on how well Bounce’s swappable network is, it could really accelerate the sales of electric scooters in the country.
Speaking about the design of the Infinity, Bounce hasn’t given away detailed pictures of it yet, but what we could fathom from the single image released, the Infinity gets a neo-retro look on the front end, ample space on the foot board, integrated footrest, sculpted body, and a raised pillion seat with a wide grab handle that extends outwards. The scooter also gets dual disc brakes.
Bounce also hasn’t given away any technical details, like the battery size or the range, of the Infinity yet, but the company reckons that it will get ‘intelligent’ features. The deliveries for the Bounce Infinity is expected to start by January 2022 and the pre-bookings will begin soon.