KARACHI: A group of environmentally-conscious young people, engineers and designers, representing Vlektra Electric Motorcycles, unveiled various models of their much-needed electric motorbikes during a programme organised by Darya Lab at the Institute of Business Administration’s (IBA) City Campus here on Thursday.

Vlektra Electric Motorcycles are Pakistan’s first lithium-ion based electric motorcycles.

Whereas buying a normal 125CC motorcycle will cost you around Rs242,000, it will cost you Rs399,000 but that is the only higher cost. “Because lithium-ion batteries are expensive. They are the best batteries in the world which are also used by Tesla and all the biggest electric vehicle manufacturing companies of the world. We are also offering battery warranty,” Fatiq Bin Khursheed, one of the partners of Vlektra, told Dawn.

“For a litre of fuel, a 125CC bike will run some 32 kilometres. It will also require Rs3,000 a month on maintenance. And then there is our most common model, the Bolt, which will run 90 kilometres on a single charge for which you spend about Rs30/kilowatt-hour (kWh). Its monthly maintenance cost is also nil. Its savings all the way,” he informed.

The variants or different Vlektra models include the already mentioned Bolt, the Retro 1969, which has that old late 1960s and early 1970s vintage look. It is also cheaper as it costs only Rs250,000. And there is the Evo, which is custom-made. It’s prototype similar in look to beautiful heavy bike was also on display at IBA. “It is a made-to-order bike. It is entirely hand-made. Customers may ask for different things to be added to it and its priced accordingly,” the partner explained.

The manufacturers also said that they had already commercially launched three of their Bolt models and even sold out the first batch. The initial batch comprised 50 bikes. And things are really looking up for them as their second batch has already been booked to be delivered in September.

They are being helpful by offering the bike on instalments as well to buyers. And all the sales are mostly based on publicity through the word of mouth or through the company’s website: www.vlektra.com

“Pakistan is the seventh most vulnerable country in the world due to climate change. Pakistan also has the second highest deaths from lung cancer. Being environment-friendly, the Vlektra has no carbon emissions. It is also noise-free. You only need to plug it into a regular socket to charge it, which takes only four to five hours. All the bikes have tubeless radial tyres and they pick up speed from 0 to 100km/h in six seconds.

The company representatives said that after manufacturing their first motorcycles they spent one year on test rides only. “Our engineers and designers are still busy making prototypes and rejecting or passing them for production,” they said. They are offering test rides at IBA.

After his test ride on the Bolt, one of the volunteers, Kamran, said that he was impressed by the motorcycle’s pickup. “It runs so smoothly and has an excellent pickup. It is also very silent so for me at least not hearing the ‘vroom vroom’ or feeling the usual vibration of a motorcycle engine revving up will take some getting used to. Also, its levers are just its brakes. The bike does not have a clutch as it doesn’t have a transmission system,” he said.

Published in Dawn, July 29th, 2022