Ultraviolette F77: Updated to better suit Euro riding conditions, but how does it affect India?

Ultraviolette Automotive has been making big strides in the electric two-wheeler space, not just in India but internationally as well. The Ultraviolette F77 series has gotten off to a great start in the country and has garnered a lot of interest abroad, so much so that the brand is present in over 10 countries across Europe and Asia and there are plans to expand further still, with the very first customer bike being delivered in the EU just a few days back. One of the reasons the F77 is a big hit among the people buying it is the fact that the team running the company are preemptively rolling out OTA updates not just for the current-gen bikes, but for all of its bikes on the road. These updates are a result of analysing well over 80 lakh kilometres of riding data that the company has managed to accumulate over the years. This is in India alone. In Europe, Ultraviolette has been testing for the last year or so and in the many thousand kilometres of data it has accumulated, one thing was immediately apparent. The riding style in Europe is vastly different than here in India.

Courtesy of the highways with higher average speeds, take the Autobahn for example, riders are sitting at speeds north of 100-120kmph for sustained durations of well over 15 minutes or more – something that Indian highways just don’t permit, be it due to the speed limits or the road conditions itself. And to ensure that the riding experience gets better, the boffins at Ultraviolette decided that they needed to do something radical. Enter Ballistic+, an update that will soon roll out to all generations of the F77 and one that will transform the riding experience by a fair bit. Ballistic+ is a result of some serious fettling with the battery, motor and motor controller, as well as a comprehensive study of the thermal capacities of all these components right down to an individual cell level. The agenda was to find the threshold of where performance and efficiency (thermal and consumption) exist in perfect harmony to unlock as much as possible from the entire setup.

What this essentially means is that Ultraviolette has essentially made more of the peak torque available much earlier in the power band and that has resulted in significantly more potent low and mid range grunt. Essentially, the responses are a lot sharper and there’s a lot more oomph right from the get go. We got to ride a bike with and without the update and the difference is really apparent. Apart from being a lot more fun at the go kart track that we rode at, this will result in being able to accelerate up to highway speeds faster and hold higher speeds while using less juice from the battery. What this means is that despite unlocking nearly 20 per cent more torque earlier, Ultraviolette claims that the range figures remain unchanged. Having more grunt down-low and in the mid range is that you can get to a desired speed a little earlier in the power band and then have some power left in reserve for quick overtakes.

I really enjoyed the F77 in this new state of tune and it was the first time I got to experience the SuperStreet variant with the naked bike style handle bars as well and all-in-all, the bike feels more exciting, and more lively. While there was no data that suggested we needed more power on the highways here in India, it is a welcome change, one that makes the bike feel new again. The more oomph is definitely something that will take getting used to, so when you do update your bike, take it easy initially. Because of the bump up in initial torque, the modes feel different as well, with Glide and Combat modes feeling more potent and therefore more usable as well. You can virtually leave the bike in Combat mode and ride around all day and use Ballistic only when required, reaping the benefits of more performance and getting more efficiency as well, owing to the fact that you aren’t in the most powerful and demanding mode.

This is a small update that will have a big impact on the way you interact with your F77. Ultraviolette has addressed a problem for the European rider and given us Indian riders a little more oomph, and the best part is that all of this is free of cost and something that all generations of the F77 can enjoy. So if you do own an Ultraviolette F77 and want to enhance the riding experience, go get the Ballistic+ update as soon as you can.