As an enthusiast, I absolutely abhor electric motorcycles. I find them lacking the most important ingredient: a SOUL. In other words, my motorcycle needs to be different than, say, my washing machine or my hair dryer. However, as a reviewer, I have to keep aside my preferences and biases to be able to “honestly” review a vehicle for its intended user. So that’s exactly what I did, this time as well.
Design
It’s an amalgam of a fully-faired sportbike and a naked. I wonder why Ultraviolette didn’t put a full fairing, including a visor (they apparently saved it for the F99), as that would’ve not only made the bike look complete, but more substantial as well. Right now, viewed head on, it looks diminutive.
Speaking of the front, the headlight performance is downright pathetic. It’s about time manufacturers developed headlights with adjustable brightness.
I couldn’t find any loose ends in build quality, but a plastic side-stand is horrifying on such an expensive, and heavy, motorcycle. More crucially though, the stand is short, due to which the bike leans over a lot more than it should, and picking it up can induce hernia if you haven’t been doing core-strengthening exercises lately.
Ergonomically, it’s an out-and-out sportbike. The riding posture is committed, but it’s not too severe like an R15’s or RC’s. The seat height is 800 mm, and I reckon anyone with a 27-inch inseam would be able to manage.
Performance & Range
Fully charged, in Ballistic mode, the F77 dismisses the 0–100 km/h (GPS) run in just 7.6 seconds, and hits a true (GPS) top speed of 140 km/h while the speedo shows 152 km/h. You’ll cover around 100 km like this, but the top speed will see a continual decline. Don’t worry—it’d still be above 100 km/h, until the power mode automatically drops down from Ballistic to Combat when the battery charge goes below 30%. Below 20%, it goes into Glide mode, and below 5%, into Hover. The top speeds are over 90, 60, and 38 km/h, respectively. Keeping the throttle pinned right from 100% battery charge to 0% gives you a range of around 140 km.
To achieve the best range without compromising on fun, select Glide in rush-hour traffic, Combat everywhere else, with a few bursts in Ballistic to elevate your serotonin levels, and you shall still get a range of around 180 km. You can obviously extract over 200 km, but then you’d be focussing too much on range, and not on fun. Introspect. You might be built for a scooter. Or the Metro.
It handles beautifully, and the ride quality is surprisingly good too, but it needs more powerful brakes.
Charge Time & Electricity Consumption
The big and heavy Boost charger Ultraviolette sent with the press bike never took a minute under 5.5 hours for a 0–100% charge, and consumed 14 KW while at it.
Verdict
As an electric motorcycle, this is THE FINEST IN INDIA. However, the majority of buyers will compare it to a regular motorcycle (and why shouldn’t they?) and that’s where the sticker price, plus the undisclosed cost of the battery, becomes a big deterrent. Ideally, the company should’ve at least kept the introductory price a lakh cheaper at INR 4 lakh on road, as that would have allowed more people to get into the fold.
Right now, I can think of only two reasons for choosing this over a regular motorcycle: 1) You want a zero-vibration motorcycle. 2) You’re an introvert who seeks to avoid all avenues of human interaction, including small talk with fuel-pump attendants.