The Yamaha Aerox has always been a bit of an oddball, an outlier in our scooter market that is dominated by commuter scooters most of which look pretty similar to each other. But the Aerox has held its ground, never trying to be too practical or sensible. Just fun; pure, unadulterated fun.

Recently Yamaha took out that lovely engine from the Aerox and fitted it with an electric motor to answer the calls for more EVs from the powers that be and the result is the Yamaha Aerox E, which we got to ride for a little while. And this is our first impression of that short lived ride.

Text & Photos: Sunil Gupta

The Looks:

Looks wise, if you park the Aerox E next to its petrol drinking sibling, most people won’t even notice the difference at first. Thankfully, it retains that sharp, aggressive maxi-scooter design, which has presence and looks fast even when it’s not moving at all.

Spend a little more time around it, and you start noticing the details. The wide front apron, the twin LED headlamps, and that muscular stance – giving you those mini superbike looks from certain angles. Even the proportions, with its long wheelbase and larger body, give it a very planted look on the road.

Overall, it actually looks quite premium, naturally standing out in a parking lot full of commuters.

But here’s the thing – unlike most of the other electric scooters out there in the market, there’s very little visual drama to tell you this is an electric scooter. Good or bad, you decide!

The Powertrain:

At the heart of the Aerox E is a mid-mounted electric motor that produces around 9.4 kW of peak power and 48 Nm of peak torque, which on paper puts it right at the sharper end of the electric scooter space. This motor is gets power from a dual battery setup — two removable 1.5 kWh units, giving you a total capacity of 3 kWh. Yamaha claims that this set up will give you a maximum range of around 106 km on a full charge, though like most EVs, that will depend a lot on how you ride it.  It comes with a 650 W charger and can be charged via a standard home socket. A full charge from zero will take around 6 hours 20 minutes. No fast charging.

The twin battery set up is a nice touch in terms of flexibility. But the range isn’t something that stands out.

Ride it gently and it’ll do the job. Start riding it the way an Aerox begs to be ridden, and the battery drops quicker than you’d like.

And because of the battery setup, you lose some under-seat storage, which was already not great to begin with.

The Ride

The Aerox E has 3 main ride modes  – Eco, Standard, and Power along with a Boost mode.

In the real world, each mode has a clear personality. Eco is tuned more for efficiency and feels a bit relaxed, suitable for your big-city-traffic-laden bumper-to-bumper commutes. It works best when you’re just cruising without any hurry.

Standard mode is where the scooter feels most natural. The response is smooth, predictable, and well-suited for most of your everyday riding needs – whether you’re filtering through traffic or just rolling along, this is the mode you’ll end up using the most.

Power mode adds a bit more urgency, especially in the mid-range. It’s not dramatically quicker than Standard, but you can feel that extra push when you twist the throttle a bit harder. To be honest, I expected from here. The kind of urgency that was expected was not delivered and that is not good, especially when this scooter wants to be known as a sports scooter.

And then there’s Boost mode. For 10 odd seconds, the Aerox E shows its playful side and feels genuinely quick. Quite handy if you want to quickly overtake that long truck on the highway.  But that spark is short lived. And you have to wait another half a minute before you can engage the boost once again.

Overall, the experience is enjoyable, especially when you start using the different modes as intended. It just feels like there’s still a bit of room for refinement to make it all come together seamlessly.

The Handling

If there’s one area where the Aerox E stays true to its roots, it’s handling.

It feels stable, planted, and surprisingly agile for its size. You can push it into corners and it responds nicely. Direction changes feel quick and predictable.

The suspension though feels stiff on the rear, and not so confidence inspiring on the front either especially when you are riding on rough patches.

The Ergonomics

For an average height person like me, I am 5 feet 5 inches, the riding position should feel okay; however, that didn’t feel the case with the taller auto journos riding this scooter at the media ride. And I also found myself quite often sliding forward as the seat is slightly sloped downward and that was not very comfortable position to be in.

The Features & Brakes

On the features front, solid job Yamaha.

The TFT screen looks good, you get connectivity, traction control, ride modes, reverse mode — everything you’d expect from a modern electric scooter.

Braking performance is strong and confidence-inspiring. No issues there.

The Conclusion:

Coming to conclusion, the Yamaha Aerox E does come across as a pretty unique overall product for someone who is looking to buy something different.

What works in its favour is its styling and the overall ride quality.

What doesn’t work is the performance; it does leave a lot to be desired for people who are looking for a sporty ride.

As of now, Yamaha has not revealed the pricing for this Aerox E but that will be one of the biggest deciding factor. And whatever be the pricing of the Yamaha Aerox E, we recommend that you take the test ride of the Aerox E and the Yamaha EC-06, the other E-scooter from Yamaha, and then decide for yourself.

Right now, it’s a glimpse of a promising fun electric scooter…probably just not there quite yet.