INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Bengaluru-based electric vehicle startup Simple Energyunveiled its maiden product, the One electric scooter in August 2021 and had since
created a buzz among the potential EV buyers
In fact, the product appeared to be an instant hit even before the launch as the company claimed that it had received over 65,000
pre-bookings for the model within three months since the wraps were taken off.Fast forward to November 2023, five months after the e-scooter
What has gone wrong? Is it already the end of the road for a promising startup? Well, we have the answers.After having dispatched the first
batch of the One in June earlier this year, the company has managed to only deliver some sub-50 units until now, thereby not living up to
In fact, quite recently, some of the customers who pre-booked the model have received communications from the company that their booking has
been cancelled and the amount will be refunded without any deductions
So far, even after the cancellation of about 10 percent, the company sits at a healthy order book of over 80,000 units and a challenge to
Suhas Rajkumar, Founder and CEO, Simple Energy, spoke at length about the ongoing speculations with TOI Auto and revealed the company's
future plans, both immediate and distant, which includes new product launches.Simple Energy says that there were several fake websites that
had started to take orders in the name of the company to dupe the customers of their money
They took orders and pre bookings and a lot of people were given false promises through those websites which were not our official websites
(outsourced agency) mentioned that we are refunding all the people, so there was a typo error
That went out to 2-3 people once we got the notice from our PR agency, we immediately acted on that CRM because it's also not in-house
We stopped those calls last month
To which Rajkumar explained that they always ask customers if they want to retain the booking, which is a part of legalities
This is always done to ensure the customers that we are always there to refund 100 percent of their money because not everyone would read
streamlined our production lines and our supply chain, and we have a large order to go out in December
We expect to sell 100 units a month in the prominent Southern and Western cities, which will propel us to 10,000 units a month by the end of
a story that Simple Energy, just like its rivals Ola Electric and Ather Energy, will be launching an affordable iteration of its One
Rajkumar told us that the EV maker will be launching the Dot One in mid-December
The company said that it will be calling up their pre-booked customers and will offer them the option to buy a lower variant.While the
scooter gets no cosmetic or feature upgrades, its cost has been brought down as it will only be offered with the fixed battery option and
four colour variants on offer as against the six with One
The upcoming Dot One will be equipped with only the fixed battery, delivering 151 km of certified range and 160 km in IDC
The performance and specs of the model will remain the same as One
The Dot One can achieve 40 kmph from a standstill in just 2.77 seconds.It will come equipped with a battery capacity of 3.7 kWh
Furthermore, the familiar 8.5 kW electric motor employed in the Dot will generate a peak torque of 72 Nm
It is also equipped with CBS and disc brakes
The scooter has more than 30 litres of under-seat storage
Other features include a touchscreen instrument cluster that controls various functions and gets app connectivity as well.Besides that, the
company plans to launch a family scooter based on the Simple One platform sometime next year
It is based on the same platform
Two years back we started off this program in-house
We have never spoken about it because we always knew what can help us catch the market is how aggressive we are on the pipeline
begin from December and the company has plans to deliver scooters in Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune , Surat, Ahmedabad, Kochi , Vizag ,
