Bajaj Auto has temporarily stopped accepting bookings for its Chetak electric scooter due to overwhelming demand. The company had re-opened online bookings for the battery-powered scooter at 9:00am on Tuesday and had to close the bookings on Thursday due to supply shortages driven by unprecedented number of online orders.
The company said that it will review the supply situation before announcing the next round of bookings for the electric scooter. The Chetak is currently being offered on a first-come-first-serve basis in Pune and Bengaluru. The company, however, plans to extend its availability to 24 other cities by 2022.
Bajaj Chetak Electric: Price and Availability
The Chetak was launched early last year in two variants, Premium and Urbane. The Chetak Premium is selling at ₹1.26 lakh while the Urbane retails at ₹1.22 lakh as its on-road price in Pune.
Commenting on the customer response, Mr. Rakesh Sharma, Executive Director at Bajaj Auto Ltd., said, “We are absolutely delighted to see the fabulous response to the re-opening of bookings for the Chetak electric scooter in Pune and Bengaluru. Covid-led disruptions last year resulted in an unintended and long waiting period but despite that we have seen very few cancellations of bookings. We thank our customers in Pune and Bengaluru for their patience and now this overwhelming response.
“We are conscious that customers would like to receive early deliveries of Chetak and start enjoying it as soon as possible, hence we have had to take the difficult decision of closing the bookings in view of continuing supply chain uncertainties. However, it is our endeavour to resolve the supply chain issues at the earliest, re-open bookings as well as roll into more cities within the next quarter,” added Sharma.
Bajaj Chetak Electric: Features
The Chetak is a high-speed automatic scooter with an indicated top speed of 70kmph and 80km range on a single charge. Its electric motor pumps out 3.8 kW of continous power (around 5bhp approx.) using Solid Gear Drive and reaches 1,400 rpm using 16.2 Nm of peak torque power delivery.
The electric scooter is built with steel body and aerodynamically-designed side panels. It comes with IP67 rating for water resistance and offers three different riding modes including a reverse mode.
On the exterior front, the Chetak sports sequential LED blinkers alongside LED headlamps with built-in horseshoe-shaped DRLs. The Chetak is now available in six colour variants.
