Hero eMaestro electric scooter expected in the new financial year

Hero MotoCorp crossed the 100 million production milestone yesterday and announced its roadmap for the next five years. The company said that it will launch its first electric vehicle next fiscal. This EV, expected to be the Hero eMaestro, will be one of the 10 or more new products it plans to release in the domestic market every year. Pawan Munjal, Chairman, MD and CEO, Hero MotoCorp, said that moving forward, the company will focus on premium segments and products.

In an interview with ET Auto after the announcement, Munjal said that Hero MotoCorp has “a three-pronged approach” in the EV segment. The company has its own projects at the R&D centre in Jaipur (CIT), then there’s the internal start-up Hero Hatch which delivered the Hero Quark 1, and finally, the Bengaluru-based EV start-up Ather Energy in which it has made a sizable investment. In an interview with the same publication last year, Munjal had confirmed that Hero electric motorcycles are also planned.

In February last year, it was confirmed that the first electric scooter from Hero Motocorp will be based on the Maestro Edge. From the Hero World 2020 event, pictures of the eMaestro concept surfaced online, revealing many new details. 91Wheels published pictures of the eMaestro Proto concept (this is the name for now) from the event.

From a distance the Hero Maestro electric looks like the regular Maestro Edge but sports several unique design elements like the blacked out LED headlamp and front suspension, wheels and the motor hub finished in copper brown. The Hero Maestro electric uses a belt driven motor and ride modes like the drive, park and reverse can be selected from the left side of the handlebar. Expect a fully-digital instrument cluster in the production version.

There are no other details revealed about the powertrain but the Hero eMaestro will be powered by a Lithium-ion battery and driven by a powerful permanent magnet motor. Features like cloud connectivity, keyless start/stop will also be included. The Hero eMaestro will compete with the likes of Bajaj Chetak, Ather 450X and Ola Electric Scooter.