Suzuki eAccess First Ride Review - First Time’s The Charm?

Words: Priyadarshan Bawikar

Photography: Suraj Karale

The Suzuki eAccess is the Japanese auto giant’ first electric scooter for India. Now we first saw the Access earlier this year at the Auto Expo and now we’ve spent some time riding the scooter as well. But before we tell you how it is to ride, there are two important caveats. Firstly we only rode on a go-kart track in Bengaluru, which means we can’t really comment on how it rides in the real world right now. And secondly it hasn't been launched yet so we don't have prices for the eAccess. So how the eAccess fits in the Indian EV ecosystem is something we only know once it’s launched.

Sporty, yet Old School

Now while it's called an eAccess, its design feels quite far removed from the petrol-powered Access 125. It looks more sporty, but not in the modern, angular way like the Suzuki Avenis 125. 

Some of the design bits such as the swooping front apron, combined with the large, sculpted LED indicators and the small handlebar mounted LED headlight, gives the design a retro flair - almost like what a sporty Italian scooter might have in the 1990s. And that's not a bad thing - it’s certainly one of the more unique looking scooters in India, in a very subtle way. The one thing I find a bit overkill is the LED DRL strip running vertically down the front apron, which feels like a bit much. Overall though, especially from the front, it does remind me a bit of the original TVS Scooty ES from the late-90s.

From the rear though, the line of the side panel running from under the front of the seat and sweeping down to the rear does have a little “Access-ness” to it. But more than that, the matte grey panel sandwiched between the body-coloured side panel and the seat makes it look a bit like the Hero Vida series of scooters from the rear. But my favorite part of the design has to be the LED tail light, flanked by sculpted LED turn indicators on each side. And the way the body panel creases over those indicators is just delectable.

While the design might not excite, what deserves full credit though is the build quality. Every panel feels solid, all panel gaps felt super tight and the eAccess gave the impression that it’s a scooter that would last for a long time. The only odd thing we noticed on our test scooter was a slight waviness to the paint finish on the front apron under the gloss coat. It wasn’t too obvious, and was only really visible when the light hit it a certain way. But once you saw it, there was no unseeing it. I’ll give Suzuki the benefit of the doubt though, since the scooters we rode were pre-production units.

Built for the whole family

While the eAccess does look like a small-ish scooter, and feels that way from many angles, the seat itself is humungous. With a length of 842mm, it’s one of the longer seats that can be found on any Indian scooter. My colleague and I tested out the space as well. He is 5’7” and about 82kg, while I’m 5’9” and 82kg as well. Neither of us are small, but when he was riding in his natural riding position and I was pillion, there was a comfortable 6-inch gap between his backside and my crotch. The seat is wide too, which should make it great for even larger built riders. And the seat cushioning feels like the perfect firmness to ensure that you won’t get a backache even after riding for a long duration. Shorter riders say those who are 5’2” to 5’5” should also have no problem on the eAccess. Its seat height is just 765mm, so getting your feet on the ground is really easy. 

That said the floorboard is a bit on the smaller side so if you have very large feet you might find it a bit of a struggle, especially if you’re carrying a backpack between your feet as well. Thankfully though, the floorboard does swoop up into the front apron on each side like on the Suzuki Burgman 125, so you can easily ride in a comfortable feet-forward position. To enhance the practicality of the floorboard, you also get two luggage hooks - one on the apron, and one under the seat to hang grocery bags.

But the problems start once you open the seat, as the underseat storage is a paltry 17 litres. It might barely accommodate a small half face helmet, or a few basic groceries. And if you carry the portable charger with you, that’s pretty much all your boot space gone. Now that really is a shame considering that a large underseat storage space has pretty much become the hallmark of modern electric scooters.

The one thing we do love here is the auto-holding hinge for the seat. Once you lift it up, it just locks into place, making getting things in and out of the boot really easy. And to lower it, you simply lift the seat a little further until you hear the latch unlock, and just release. The seat comes down in one clean motion and locks with a solid “thunk”. No jiggling, no missing the locking mechanism, nothing! It makes me wonder why this isn’t standard in all scooters?

The only other storage space you get is a small cubby hole on the left side of the front apron, which is big enough to fit a 300ml bottle. My iPhone 14 Pro Max, with a regular sized case had to be shoved in there diagonally and it was still a snug fit.

Urban Runabout

Now the reason why the boot space is so little is because the battery pack is located right under the seat in front of the boot and that does take up a lot of space. Suzuki is using an LFP (Lithium Ferro Phosphate) battery pack, which does have lower charge density than an equivalent NMC (Nickel Manganese Cobalt) battery pack, making it quite large too. But the company tells us they have gone the LFP way as these cells are safer, more reliable and hold their charge capacity for much longer than NMC cells.

This pack’s capacity isn’t too high - just 3.07kWh, which Suzuki claims gives the eAccess a range of 95km of a full charge. And these are the charging times Suzuki is claiming for this battery pack:

So how much range can we expect in the real world? We were belting the eAccess on the track for the whole time and we saw a drop in the battery SOC (State of Charge) from 96 percent to 56 percent after 21 kilometers around the track. That roughly translates to 0.5km per percent SOC, indicating we would’ve got a range of about 50km, if we continued riding the way we did.

That might sound terrible, but we were pushing the scooters quite hard around the track. Under normal riding conditions, we expect that the eAccess would be able to go around 75-80km on a full charge. Again, not the best in the segment by any means, but we believe it should be enough for most commuters who ride around 40-50km per day.

Confusing Personalities

The eAccess also has three riding modes - Mode A, Mode B and Eco. The names of these modes can be quite confusing, so here’s a table explaining how they differ.

Now the confusing thing about the eAccess is that if you want to switch modes from A to Eco and back, as well as B to Eco and back, you just need to tap the mode button on the right switchgear, and this can be done on the move too. But if you want to change between Modes A and B, you have to come to a complete stop and then hold the mode button for a couple of seconds. Suzuki says that this mechanism has been incorporated to increase safety, but honestly doesn’t make any sense to us.

Riding in Mode B, with the least amount of braking regeneration, the eAccess feels like a regular e-scooter, and almost freewheels a bit when you roll off the throttle. However the braking regen in Mode A and Eco is quite strong, almost feeling like what happens when you roll off the throttle on a 100cc bike in second gear. In these modes, the eAccess sheds speed quite rapidly once you release the throttle. In fact, I was able to ride a couple of laps around the go-kart track (quite quickly mind you) without using any brakes at all.

The eAccess gets a reverse mode too, which can be engaged by bringing the scooter to a halt, holding the brake and pressing the start button for a couple seconds. You get a little “R” on the dashboard as well as a soft beeping to let you know you’re in Reverse mode. And you actually move backwards by rolling the throttle in the opposite direction. Getting out of Reverse involves the exact same procedure and while it works well, we think this process is a bit fidgety 

Quick Enough

The Suzuki eAccess has got a mid-mounted 4.1kW motor that puts out a peak torque of 15Nm. And it drives the rear wheel through a covered belt drive. Suzuki says that this covered belt drive has a life span of over 70,000km or 7 years. But since the eAccess is meant to be a family scooter, performance isn't on top of its list of things to do. When you open the throttle, the eAccess accelerates smoothly and sufficiently quickly to about 50-55kmph, after which, the performance tapers off a bit. It should be enough for most people for city use, but it’s far from the quickest electric scooters we’ve ridden.

But more than the outright performance, the eAccess’ throttle calibration needs special mention. The throttle feels super accurate, and it’s very easy to get exactly as much performance as you need, whenever you need it. Also, there’s not an appreciable difference in acceleration between Mode A, Mode B and Eco, which is something we really liked. Suzuki also told us that the eAccess won’t derate the performance from the motor at all till the battery SoC reaches 10 percent. While we couldn’t fully test this out, for all the hot laps we did with this e-scooter, the performance never dropped even one bit.

Floats like a butterfly

The one area where we can’t fault the eAccess is in the way it handles. It’s running on 12-inch wheels at both ends with a 90/90-12 front tyre and a wider 100/80-12 rear tyre. The eAccess changes direction really quickly without feeling unsettled at any point. The weight (although at 122kg, high on paper) melts away once you start riding, and you could easily be mistaken for thinking you’re riding something 20kg lighter.

Even when leaned over, it feels stable and predictable. On the track, Suzuki had marked a slalom for us to ride through, and the eAccess flicked through the turns with utmost precision and ease.

The brakes felt really good too. The eAccess gets a 190mm front disc with a 130mm rear drum, and a combined braking system which automatically applies the front brake when you use the rear. That said, I did find it fairly easy to lock the rear wheel if I grabbed a handful of rear brake. But even when doing this on a tiled surface, the rear barely steps out and the scooter always feels under full control.

It’s got some bounce

In order to get that handling so sharp and precise, the eAccess’ ride quality is a bit on the firmer side, especially at the back. The front telescopic fork feels fairly pliant over bumps, but the rear suspension does feel bouncy. Suzuki had put some plastic speedbreakers on the track for us to test out he eAccess’ ride quality, and if I didn’t adequately slow down for those speed breakers, the rear would easily toss me off my seat, and once, over the bump, the smart key flew out of the front cubby hole.

Honestly, I believe that the eAccess would ride much better if you are riding two-up, rather than solo. But for me, a larger concern is the ground clearance. At 160mm, it’s adequate on paper, but the centre stand (which comes as standard) hangs really low, and it would be easy to scrape that on a speedbreaker, especially if the scooter is being ridden by a heavy rider.

Got the basics covered

The new Suzuki eAccess is not super big on fancy features either. It gets a 4.2-inch colour TFT screen, which although quite well laid out and legible, feels really tiny compared to any of the other premium e-scooters in India today.

This screen does support smartphone connectivity for Turn-by-turn navigation, call & message alerts and even weather alerts. Unfortunately, we couldn’t test any of this as the Suzuki RIde Connect app didn’t even list the eAccess at the time of this review.

The one nice feature that we could test was the smart key, which automatically unlocks the scooter when you bring it in close proximity. Once the key is near the scooter, the multi function knob on the apron lights up blue to let you know the scooter is good to go. You can use this knob to then unlock the handlebar, or twist it to the left to open the seat, or push it down and turn it right to open the charging flap on the inside of the front apron.

Should you buy the Suzuki eAccess?

At this stage, it’s a bit difficult to recommend the eAccess because the prices haven’t been announced yet. By itself, the eAccess is a pretty solid electric scooter, although far from impressive in terms of performance, range and features. What it does seem to offer is solid build quality, and going by Suzuki’s track record with its other products, we believe it will continue to be reliable throughout its life span.

It finally comes down to pricing. If Suzuki prices the eAccess above Rs 1.10 lakh ex-showroom, it’s going to be a hard sell, since you have other super competent electric scooters from big auto makers like Bajaj and TVS at similar prices. But if Suzuki can get the price under that magic Rs 1.10 lakh mark, then it would really make it a great deal, and the eAccess could just be your next family electric scooter.