Weekend Drive by Hormazd Sorabjee: The power and the glory
How the Vida V1 Pro, India’s home-grown electric scooter, set a new Guinness World Record, powered by batteries and grit
Records are meant to broken. And if it’s a Guinness World Record, it’s a shot at making history. History was made on a hot April day at Hero MotoCorp’s state-of-the-art test track in Rajasthan. Six riders took turns to ride a Vida V1 Pro electric scooter continuously for 24 hours, covering a distance of 1,780 kms to grab a new Guinness title for the maximum distance covered by an electric scooter in 24 hours. It smashes the previous record of 1430 kms set last October in Europe by a Seat electric scooter. In fact, the Vida V1 Pro cruised past Seat’s figure in the 19th hour. By the end of 24 hours, it was 350 kms ahead.
I was chuffed to be the seventh rider (for the final 20 minutes) to bring home the Vida V1 Pro and set the final distance record.
Now, 1780 kms is the equivalent of driving from Chandigarh to Hyderabad. And doing it in 24 hours in any vehicle is a daunting ask. To do it on a scooter is crazy. On an electric scooter, it’s impossible, or so we thought. Electric scooters, when ridden flat out, give you 50 kms of range before needing a recharge of around four to five hours. Attempting a 24-hour record seems futile because the bike would be stationary as it was charging.
The game-changer, however, came last year, with the Vida V1, India’s first home grown e-scooter with removable batteries that you can swap for fully charged ones in seconds when they run out. That’s when the idea clicked.
The plan was simple. Start with a full battery, run the Vida V1 at maximum speed until the charge dropped to 20-25%, swap, repeat for 24 hours. If everything went smoothly, the math said we would easily set a new world record.
Perfect preparation was crucial. The day before the actual run was spent practising pit stops, determining battery efficiency and refining communication protocols. There are 86,000 seconds in 24 hours and it takes just one second for something to go terribly wrong.
We kicked off at 6.45 am. The first phase was to focus on finding a rhythm, checking performance, and for the riders to adapt to the task ahead. E-scooters typically have limited power, so aerodynamic drag becomes a significant factor affecting speed and range. Riders had to bend forward and maintain this streamline position lap after lap to prevent drag, which put a huge strain on their backs and necks.
The day got hotter and hotter, with temperatures reaching almost 40 degrees. Under heavy riding gear, it felt more like 50 degrees. Riders tried to keep cool by piping water through their gear. Sleep? There wasn’t much of it and it all but disappeared at 2am when we surpassed the existing record. The elation and adrenaline rush that swept through the team was more effective than 100 cans of Red Bull.
For the Vida V1 Pro, which effortlessly held its top speed of around 80 kmph lap after lap, hour after hour, this record-breaking run felt like a non-event.
The unsung heroes were the phenomenal pit crew, which swapped batteries 38 times, in under 20 seconds each. As they got the hang of it, the swaps became faster – the fastest was a mere 11 seconds. In fact, the total stationary time was just 11 minutes out of the entire 24 hours!
And that really is the significance of this achievement. You can remove the battery pack and take it to your home, office or wherever convenient to charge it. The Vida V1 Pro isn’t slave to a plug or cable. This Guinness World Record title proves that.
