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Bollywood director Kiran Rao buys a Bajaj Chetak electric scooter

Bollywood director and producer, Kiran Rao has bought a Bajaj Chetak. She is the ex-wife of the famous Bollywood actor, Aamir Khan. Her scooter is custom painted in Topaz Blue. This paint scheme is not offered by Bajaj. The special paint scheme does add a retro charm to the Chetak.

Bollywood director Kiran Rao buys a Bajaj Chetak electric scooter

Bajaj brought back the Chetak nameplate after 14 years. However, this time the manufacturer is using the nameplate for their first electric scooter. Chetak competes against the TVS iQube, Ather 450, Simple Energy One and Ola S1. Chetak is offered in two variants. There is a Premium trim that costs Rs. 1.44 lakhs ex-showroom and Urbane trim that is priced at Rs. 1.42 lakhs ex-showroom.

A person can book their Chetak by going to their online website. The stock colours of Chetak Premium are Brooklyn Black, Velutto Rosso, Hazelnut and Indigo Metallic. The Urbane variant is offered only in Cyber White and Citrus Rush paint scheme.

Bollywood director Kiran Rao buys a Bajaj Chetak electric scooter

Just like the original Chetak, the electric scooter is also using steel body panels. The design of the scooter is very retro looking. It gets an almost circular headlamp with an LED Daytime Running Lamp. The turn indicators are placed vertically on the front body panel. It also gets very elegant looking rearview mirrors. There are also 12-inch alloy wheels that are finished in black.

Chetak gets a 3.8 kW motor that is driven by a battery pack. It generates 5 bhp of peak power and 16.2 Nm of peak torque. The battery is IP67 dust and water-resistant so you do not have to worry about the battery getting damaged by water.

Bollywood director Kiran Rao buys a Bajaj Chetak electric scooter

There are two riding modes that come with Chetak. There is Eco and Sport. As the name suggests Eco is mainly for driving in the city while conserving the battery whereas in Sport mode the acceleration speed and throttle response increase. The riding range of the scooter is 90 km in Eco mode and it takes 5 hours to charge the battery. There is no fast charging facility available with Chetak. The top speed is limited to 70 kmph which should be enough for daily city commutes.

The scooter comes with LED lighting, an LED instrument cluster, LED turn indicators, sequential turn indicators at the rear, The scooter was first launched in Pune and Bengaluru. Now, the scooter is available in Mangalore, Aurangabad and Mysore. Bajaj also announced that they will be launching the Chetak in Hyderabad and Chennai.

Suspension duties are done by link fork in the front and mono-shock at the rear. Braking duties are done by a disc in the front and a drum at the rear. It comes with Combined Braking System for added safety.  Bajaj says that the battery should last up to 70,000 km if maintained properly. Chetak comes with a factory warranty of 3 years or 50,000 km.

Paarth Khatri

Paarth's passion for cars started by collecting newspaper clippings when he was just a toddler. He is obsessed with cars and technology and can talk about them all day. He has an undying love for cars with a manual transmission and is always ready to drive anything with 2 or 4 wheels. Being an audiophile his dream car is Lexus LFA, considering it is the best sounding car ever made. He would happily burn the last gallon of petrol for a lap in the Ariel Atom 500. (Full bio)