Okinawa Ridge Electric Scooter Review

At the first glance you may miss it to be just another regular scooter.  If not for its stunning looks you wouldn’t even notice its presence in the vicinity as it can sneak past a busy street in the most unbelievably silent manner. Yes we are talking of Ridge the recently launched Electric Vehicle (EV) offering from Okinawa Autotech, Gurgaon. Read on to know more on the Okinawa Ridge.

Design

The build quality of Ridge is fairly impressive with decent plastic quality and seemingly robust overall construction. The paint quality is absolutely top notch as well. It comes in four different colour options to choose from, a couple of which are actually Dual Tone shade combinations. The test vehicle received by the motoroctane team carried a matt green with bright orange colour scheme, which in our opinion is the best looking of the lot. Wide headlamps and a wrap-around tail lamp look bold, and aids better visibility during dim light conditions. Turn indicators are located above the headlamp in a neat wrap around clear lens. Grab rails for the rear passenger are wide & chunky, adding to the glam quotient of the bike. The nicely sculpted 10 inches alloy wheel further makes it one of the best looking set of wheels in the segment.

Features & Convenience

The absence of clutch & gear assembly together with a lower saddle height makes Okinawa Ridge an effortless ride. The digital speedometer is bright and easy to read. Manoeuvring is easy and initial pick up is reasonably good for a two wheeler designed to facilitate short rides within the city. The battery can be charged through any regular power socket usually installed in every house, just that one may need an extension board with a long chord in case there’s none near the parking lot. The charging cable comes with a huge adapter with charge level indicator on it. Thankfully enough it fits easily into the under seat stowage area yet allowing you to keep a full size helmet alongside.  A lockable glove box is also available in front as a second storage space, however the space within is really small and certainly can’t accommodate any of your shopping bags. You would have to be content with a bag hook provided for that purpose.

Also Read: Hero Flash Electric Scooter for Rs 20,000 

It doesn’t have extendable foot pegs for the rear passenger as you may have seen on some other scooters, but an extended area of foot board is marked for resting your feet. Only thing that we found a little troublesome was the switch panel placement. It’s almost impossible to reach out to the turn indicator switch without shifting your grip from the handle if not removing your hand to operate it. Ergonomics could have been better here.

The ignition key for Ridge comes with a unique remote lock feature. Once the remote electronic lock is activated, vehicle will raise a loud shrilling alarm the minute someone tries to remove its stand or sits on the saddle. Also the wheels get jammed not allowing the miscreant to even drag it on foot, rendering the ridge completely immobile.

Performance

When you buy a vehicle of this size and configuration you sure are not looking at long hauls. Still it’s important that it doesn’t leave you stranded on a street with a battery devoid of all its charge. Ridge is powered by a 800 Watt electric motor supported by a 60V 30A lead acid battery and usually takes around 6-7 hours for a full battery charge. We conducted a range test on Okinawa Ridge and it could clock a full 79 km in total (in Eco mode) before it became really sluggish during the last few kilometres and we had to plug it again to brim its cells with a fresh doze of energy.

The small red switch on the steering handle allows the rider to choose between two drive modes – Economy or Sport. Economy mode caps the top speed to a maximum of 35-37km/hr, whereas if driving in Sports mode the odometer speed sign can light up to a maximum of 55km/hr. Apart from this, the Ridge doesn’t hesitate climbing up moderate ascents like the neighbourhood flyover or show any signs of sluggishness or difficulty even when carrying the load of two average weighing adult riders on the incline. It does occasionally notify you of motor stress in such situations by flashing a temporary drop in charge level along with blinking battery tell-tale sign on the instrument panel. The suspension was also found to be bottoming out often while riding over big speed breakers.

We were not much impressed with Ridge’s braking performance. The rear drum in particular was not effective at all unless used along with the front one. For a scooter that doesn’t move around with an engine growl as a pedestrian warning, we feel this is an area definitely calling for improvement.

Verdict

If you have ridden fossil fuel powered IC engines all your life, the awkwardly quiet performance of Okinawa Ridge can be quite unsettling initially, but then you not only come to terms with it soon, but also start appreciating it rather quickly.  At a price of Rs 42,400 ex showroom Delhi, it indeed is a competitively priced practical product worth putting your money behind. Looking at the increased general interest in Electric Vehicles and growing acceptability in the Indian market Okinawa Ridge is surely in the right place and at the right time. Finally it’s Okinawa after sales support & product reliability that will determine its eventual success in the market.