Hero Duet E electric scooter to fight Bajaj Chetak & TVS iQube, says report

As we reported last week, Hero MotoCorp is indeed working on an electric scooter and the Hero Duet E would be its first product. A report on MoneyControl.com states that the battery-powered scooter will be made available in the next few months as revealed by one of the parts suppliers of the Duet E to the publication.

It is unknown if Hero MotoCorp would be using the Hero branding for the Duet E as they are not allowed to use it for their electric scooters. Hero Electric, another Munjal family enterprise owns the rights to use the Hero brand for electric scooters, according to a family settlement in 2010. Hero Electric has a range of scooters and is gearing up to unveil its first electric motorcycle at the Auto Expo next week.

Hero Duet Electric features & specifications

When it was showcased at the 2016 Auto Expo, the conceptual Hero Duet E, with the ‘Electric Drive’ technology, came with a riding range of 65 km in a single charge, which falls short of the main rivals – the Bajaj Chetak offers a range of up to 95 km, TVS iQube offers 75 km and the Ather 450X returns a range of 85 km. Hero then said the Duet electric concept could accelerate from 0-60 kmph in 6.5 seconds, had a 5 kW BLDC motor, anti-theft feature and a peak torque of 14 Nm.

Given it has been 4 years since the display, Hero MotoCorp’s product development teams in India (CIT) and Germany (HTCG) would have updated the Duet E for improved riding range and performance featuring the latest Li-Ion battery technology. There is no information reported about the battery size, motor output, etc of the production version.

Expect the scooter to get connected technology featuring a large TFT display with features such as Remote Battery Charge Status, Navigation Assist, park location, Geo-fencing and Incoming call/SMS alerts. Going by what the competitors are giving, the scooter should use a 2-3 kWh battery pack with a motor output of about 4-5 kW/15 Nm. We expect the Hero Duet Electric price to be below INR 1.15 lakh (ex-showroom) with availability limited to a few Indian states.

Our internal EV programme is on track and we are working towards introducing mass-market products and solutions in a phased manner. However, we would talk about specific products and their brand names closer to their launch dates.

Hero MotoCorp spokesperson

[Source: MoneyControl.com]