Ather Rizta extended review: What's it like to have an electric scooter as your primary vehicle?

The Ather Rizta is quite different from the 450X when it comes to design, and this also helps with making it a more practical scooter for the city. The seat is bigger and more spacious, with enough room for two adults to sit comfortably even over relatively long rides. Additionally, the backrest behind the seat made it even more comfortable to sit on. While the lack of extendable footrests for the passenger was initially disconcerting, I quickly realised that the back of the floorboard has enough room at just the right spot. 

Ride quality was excellent for the most part, with plenty of maneuverability and just the right ride dynamics for city riding at low to moderate speeds. That said, I tended to keep riding speeds to about 65km/h at most in the city, with the Rizta feeling a bit tenuous at speeds higher than that especially on roads with potholes and bumps.

ALSO SEE: Ather 450X Gen 3 review

I had the coasting regen system active, and also often used the Twist reverse throttle system on the Ather Rizta. The coasting regen takes a bit of getting used to because it doesn’t let you coast freely and starts slowing the scooter down, so you’ll need to change your throttle behavior accordingly. Twist works as a good alternative to braking 

There’s plenty of under-seat storage for most things, including potentially two helmets, one helmet and the charging kit, or even your groceries and other things. The front of the Ather Rizta unfortunately doesn’t have any storage or holders, and I had nowhere to place my smartphone and other small stuff while riding; switching off and popping the seat to access things got tiresome quickly. 

This can be solved with accessories such as the frunk, and other options such as the shopper bag for the under-seat storage are useful too, but it’s a bit annoying that you have to buy optional extras to solve for this fairly basic problem. That said, there’s plenty of floorboard space to put bags down, leaving you with plenty of leg space for comfort while riding.

 

 

 

 

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Electric vehicles are currently viewed as the vehicles of the future for a number of reasons, including being viewed as modern, tech-focused, and eco-friendly. Another big factor in choosing an EV is the cost of running, with electric scooters offering a considerable cost advantage when comparing the cost of electricity to charge with that of petrol as would be used on an ICE scooter.

Over a few days of using the Ather Rizta as my primary mode of getting around, I was able to get a decent idea of riding range per charge, as well as the charging process and costs. On a single charge, with mixed usage varying between the Zip and Smart Eco modes and heavy use of coasting regen and the Twist reverse throttle system, I was able to get 105km of running. This can go up to around 125km if you exclusively use the Smart Eco mode, or down to around 95km if only using the Zip mode - I’m talking about the 3.7kWh variant here.

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Once I had the battery level at close to zero, I connected the Ather Rizta to a Tata EZ Charge station using the Ather Duo Charger that I had been provided for the review. This is a chunky unit capable of charging at up to 700W at home, and can be plugged into just about any 16A power socket.

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Charging this way took around five hours for nearly a full charge, for which the Tata EZ Charge station billed me around Rs. 60 equating to a running cost of around Rs. 0.50 per km. This is considerably more affordable than what my Burgman Street (125cc) costs to run - around Rs. 300 worth of petrol to cover the same distance, or around Rs 3 per km. Naturally, you’ll see the cost benefits add up over time.

Ather’s positioning and appeal with the 450X series has placed it in an aspirational and performance-driven niche, but with the Rizta, the electric scooter maker shows that it can be a perfectly capable and practical everyday two-wheeler. More space to sit, more space to store things, comfortable ride dynamics for city use, and a fully connected instrument cluster makes this a very good scooter to live with.

It’s also affordable to operate - considerably more so than a similar petrol-powered two-wheeler - and has a respectable riding range that works well for urban requirements. The Ather Rizta has, on the whole, worked rather well for me for the few days that I had it to use.