The Ather Konarc and Simple Wave are the electric scooters whose launch in the Indian market took place recently. They both are positioned in the two-wheeler electric vehicle segment as a family scooter at affordable pricing, with a decent daily driving range, an ideal top speed for city driving, and ample under-seat luggage carrying.
Families who are looking for an e-scooter that is an ideal choice for their needs may go through the side-by-side comparison between these scooters and finalise which one provides actual value for the money. For this comparison, we have chosen the base variant of each one, the Ather Konarc S 100 and the Simple Wave S 110.
Space and dimensions.
The wheelbase, seat height and under-seat storage of the Ather Konarc S 100 are 1,352 mm, 770 mm and 31 litres, respectively; but the Simple Wave S 110’s wheelbase is 5 mm shorter, seat height is 5 mm less, and under-seat boot space is 32 litres bigger.
With the longer wheelbase, the Ather e-scooter gives better high-speed stability, and a lower seat height make this scooter ideal and appealing for the short-height riders and elders, but the smaller under-seat storage significantly impacts the luggage-carrying practicality.
Features and technology.
The Ather electric scooter gets an LCD instrument cluster with smartphone connectivity for the turn-by-turn navigation, call alerts, and SMS alerts; they are all also offered with the Simple e-scooter. Other features that are found in both are Hill-hold assist, over-the-air software updates for the LCD screen, and reverse mode.
Additional features that only Konarc has are three riding modes: SmartEco, Eco, and Power; Park Assist to help in reversing the scooter out of a parking space; USB Type-C charging port for phone charging convenience during the power outage.
The extra features that only Wave is equipped with are crawl mode which enables slow moving in heavy traffic and manoeuvring in tight parking spaces and three driving modes: Ride, Eco and EcoX; these are different from its competitors.
Underpinning, suspension and braking.
The Konarc is a on steel unibody chassis that is named as the EL platform but is a wave underpin tubular steel frame. Their front suspension is the same; both have telescopic forks. The rear suspension for Konarc is dual hydraulic coil springs, and for Wave, it is progressive twin rear shock absorbers.
The suspension travel for the Konarc is 90 mm for the front and 100 mm for the rear; these details for the Wave aren’t disclosed officially. The rear wheel size for both is 12-inch in diameter, but the front is 14-inch for the Ather e-scooter and only 12-inch for the Simple electric two-wheeler.
The rear brakes are for drums for both, but Wave has a disc at the front, and Konarc gets the drum. In terms of braking, the Simple e-scooter is the one which has the more powerful braking setup. To ensure safe braking, they both get CBS that disturbs the braking force between the wheels.
Powertrain and performance.
Both electric scooters are equipped with the permanent magnet synchronous motor with a one-speed automatic gearbox. The power output of the Konarc’s motor is 4 kW, but the Wave’s delivers 0.5 kW more power. The battery pack for the Ather scooter is 2.1 kWh with a 100 IDC range, but the Wave gets the battery pack that has 0.1 kW more capacity giving 10 km more range.
The top speed for both electric scooters is 70 kmph because of near-similar power output of the PMSM, and the acceleration timing for 0 to 40 kmph is 5 seconds for the Konarc, but the same for the Wave is 4 seconds, 1 second less than its rival.
Price and availability.
The Ather Konarc S 100 is available with an ex-showroom price of ₹99,999, but the Simple Wave S 110 costs ₹109,999. The former one is affordable at ₹10,000. Both are available for sale across the country. As they are a recently launched model, their delivery is yet to begin.