Electric two-wheelers are scooters and motorcycles that run on a battery and an electric motor. Several Indian start-ups build them from the software up. They write their own vehicle operating system, their own battery management, their own rider app and their own over-the-air updates. This approach is called a software-defined vehicle: much of what the vehicle does is decided by software, which can be changed after the vehicle is sold.
Here is a typical case. A rider in Coimbatore owns an electric scooter. One morning, the app shows a message: a new update is ready. The scooter is parked at home. It downloads the update through its mobile connection, and installs it in about ten minutes. The next day, the dashboard shows a better range estimate and a new riding mode. No visit to the service centre was needed. The system that sends such updates is the over-the-air (OTA) updates for vehicles platform.
A petrol scooter changes little after it is sold. An electric one has no engine or gearbox to service, and the maker's work is mostly in the battery and the software. So the maker can fix a fault, add a feature or adjust how the motor delivers power by sending an update. The maker also receives data on how each scooter is used. This helps it improve the battery software and spot a fault that appears in many scooters.
The scooter has four main parts. The battery pack stores the energy and has its own management system. The digital cockpit is the dashboard screen. The vehicle operating system and rider app run the scooter's computer and show trips and charge. And advanced rider assistance systems (ARAS) warn the rider about hazards.
The scooter is refilled either by a charger or by battery swapping. Many delivery fleets use swapping, because the rider loses a minute or two, not hours.