It provides 30 miles of range, and its battery can be removed and plugged in inside. Alex Washburn/WIRED
It provides 30 miles of range, and its battery can be removed and plugged in inside.
Alex Washburn/WIRED
The top speed is just 30 mph, which cuts it a bit close for riding on big city streets. Alex Washburn/WIRED
The top speed is just 30 mph, which cuts it a bit close for riding on big city streets.
The GenZe electric scooter is designed to be a practical vehicle for getting around a city. Alex Washburn/WIRED
The GenZe electric scooter is designed to be a practical vehicle for getting around a city.
Alex Washburn/WIRED
Alex Washburn/WIRED
As a rule, being two blocks from a baseball stadium hosting a World Series game is a bad place to test a vehicle. The traffic is crazy, pedestrians are spilling off the sidewalk, and the joyous mayhem is generally inconvenient for those just passing through. In this case, though, it wasn’t a problem. Riding through the alleys and main thoroughfares of San Francisco’s SoMa neighborhood, around the corner from AT&T Park less than an hour before game time, I easily snaked between cars crowding together for the chance to pay $80 to park for a few hours, twisting the throttle to pop through small openings.
My ride for the afternoon was the GenZe, an all-electric scooter designed to make American youngsters swoon. As far as two-wheelers go, the GenZe isn’t about being stylish: It’s got no flash, nothing to make anyone look twice. Its focus is relentless practicality, something it does well.
The scooter is made in Michigan, but its roots are in India. GenZe is a new, American subsidiary of the Mahindra Group, the Mumbai-based conglomerate with its hands in the auto, aerospace, agriculture, construction, energy, IT, hospitality, finance, and real estate industries (to name a few). It’s never had much presence in the US, and the new branch is tasked with breaking into the American scooter market, which, compared to markets in Europe and Asia, is wide open.
“We wanted to bring a development, an innovation to a market that’s never really seen anything quite like this,” says Alex Boyce, GenZe’s brand manager. The target is the city-loving millenial who doesn’t want to deal with maintaining and parking a car, especially one with an internal combustion engine that makes the planet sick.
There are other electric scooters for sale in the US, but the options aren’t terrific, and it’s hard to find a good balance of capability, practicality, and affordability. From what GenZe has shown us so far, it could provide fill that gap. Its scooter will go for $2,999 (and there’s financing available). That’s more expensive than other options, but within reach of many young adults and college students (or their generous parents).
Its 1.6-kWh lithium-ion battery provides 30 miles of range, which is plenty for a vehicle designed strictly for tooling around town. To charge the 25-pound battery, you pop it out of the scooter, schlep it inside, and plug it into a standard 110-volt outlet. It’ll be fully loaded in about three and a half hours. Like all lithium-ion batteries, it degrades with time: GenZe estimates 800 charge cycles will reduce it to 80 percent of its initial capacity. GenZe could equip the bike for fast charging, Boyce says, but it doesn’t seem necessary, and would take away from the focus on simplicity and cost-efficiency.
The GenZe benefits from the instant torque provided by its motor, and it takes less than eight seconds to reach top speed. Problem is, that top speed is just 30 mph. For city riders who want to keep up with traffic on major streets, that’s cutting it close. It’d be better to be able to get up to 35 or 40 mph, so drivers don’t feel encouraged to pass you, which is intimidating. GenZe has good reason to limit the speed, however: at a Vmax of 30 mph, people in most states won’t need a special license to ride it. California buyers will need an M2 moped license.
The seven-inch touchscreen displays all the standard info (speed, charge level, range), and lets you unlock the scooter with a PIN instead of a key. That can be convenient for everyone, but it’s especially useful for fleet purposes, which GenZe sees as a market in addition to the youths.
For inexperienced riders, the GenZe is a good place to start. It has an Easy mode that seriously tones down the power and disables the throttle when the front brake is applied—since both controls are operated by the right hand, accelerating while trying to stop is a standard rookie mistake. There’s also Sport mode for those who want to a bit more hustle, and an Eco mode that splits the difference. Thanks to an aluminum frame, the scooter weighs about 215 pounds, which makes it easy to keep upright at low speeds and on tight turns. If you forget to pop up the kick stand before hitting the throttle, the bike won’t go at all.
The scooter can only seat one (we imagine anyone who reaches its 275-pound maximum won’t get the full performance benefits), but it’s got room for plenty of cargo. Rather than the standard storage box, there’s a large bin behind the rider. A smaller storage compartment up front could easily hold a purse, and GenZe plans to add a phone charger. Again, it’s all about practicality: No one will drool over the GenZe or take a photo as it rolls by. But owners will likely find it does what they expect and need.
GenZe is now taking pre-orders for the scooter, with deliveries planned for the spring. It will start with sales in California, Portland, Oregon, and Michigan (where its manufacturing facility is based), to make sure it can deliver spare parts and maintenance when necessary. After whatever early bugs pop up have been dealt with, it will look into expansion, possibly beyond the US. “We want to get this model right,” says Yesim Erez, GenZe’s head of marketing.
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