Suzuki e-Access first ride review - Great or too late?

The proliferation of electric vehicles in India, especially electric scooters, has accelerated rapidly in the last few years. Almost every major player, including legacy brands like Bajaj, TVS, Hero and most recently Honda have a contender or more in the space. Everyone except Suzuki, until now. The Japanese marque has finally entered its own horse in the race in the form of the all-new e-Access. We first saw the electric Access at the Bharat Mobility Show in January and we’ve finally gotten our hands on one, albeit at a go kart track. Can this electric family scooter live up to the ‘Access’ name and has it been worth the wait. Time to put some laps in!

Suzuki e-Access styling and design

Let’s address the design of the e-Access before we prime the motor and start scraping floorboards. As the name suggests, this is a family-centric scooter and it certainly looks the part. The styling is very balanced and mature and most importantly, non-offensive. You wouldn’t be too far off in assuming that this is an ICE scooter. It fits very nicely into Suzuki’s scooter lineup, design-wise and while the silhouette is similar, the styling is fresh enough to differentiate itself from the ICE Access. At the front, sits a sharp and sleek headlight under which is a long DRL strip, placed vertically and the indicators to either side of the DRLs. The front apron is where you’ll find a small cubby hole on the left, for stowing your phone along with a USB charger. On the right is the knob for ignition, opening the boot and the charging port. I say knob, because the e-Access gets keyless ignition. On top, you have a 4.2-inch colour TFT screen and all the switches that let you operate the scooter. The seat is long and accommodating and at 765mm accessible for riders of all heights. Even taller riders shouldn’t have a problem with the handlebar fowling with their knees. At five-foot-ten, I didn’t. The rear section is made up of a contrasting, silver/grey plastic panel that separates the two body panels that run from the start to the rear of the scooter. Below this panel is the tail light and the indicators. All lights on the e-Access are LED. All-in-all, the e-Access looks well proportioned and the 12-inch rims tie up the design very well.

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Suzuki e-Access battery, motor and performance

At the heart of the e-Access is a 3.07kWh LFP battery that powers a motor that outputs 4.59bhp and 15Nm of torque. This, Suzuki claims, makes the e-Access good for 95km of range on a full charge basis in the AIS 039 (ARAI) testing cycle. One thing that the boffins at Suzuki are very proud of, and ensured that we paid attention to during our ride was the throttle calibration and the consistency of the throttle response for nearly the entirety of the battery’s charge cycle. From 100 per cent to 10 per cent to be precise. Coming to the rideability of the e-Access, the numbers suggest pretty sedate performance and that is absolutely the case.

The belt drive and auto tensioner system is maintenance free and Suzuki claims that it will be good for 7 years or 70,000km without any servicing. -Shot by Avdhoot A Kohle for Evo India

Prime the motor, set off and the first thing you will notice is just how linear the throttle is. It does accelerate up to 40kmph fairly quickly but it does so with a lot of grace and composure. This is afterall meant to be a family scooter and to that end, it feels perfectly capable of being ridden by any member of the family. There are three ride modes to choose from – Eco, A and B. Eco has the most regen and speed is capped at 55kmph, A is strong regen with a 71kmph top-speed while B is least regen and the 71kmph top-speed. Throttle response feels more or less similar across modes; it's just that the lack of regen is properly apparent in B. Owing to the limits of the go kart track, we couldn’t test the range claims but this much I can tell you. We rode for 40 minutes in a spirited manner doing many laps of a 1.2km track and the battery dropped from 93 per cent to 44 per cent. My assumption is that if ridden as it’s meant to be, the scooter should come very close to the claimed figure. This will be verified in our comprehensive road test when we get the scooter. Credit where it’s due, the throttle response did stay consistent through my riding session and I didn’t get any deration or heat warnings whatsoever.

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Suzuki e-Access ride and handling

Underpinning the e-Access is a underbone frame that uses the aluminium battery casing as a stressed member. The frame is suspended off of a telescopic fork at the front and a swingarm mounted monoshock at the rear. This review is not going to cover the real world ride and handling as we were restricted to a go kart track. Those parameters will be covered when we ride it in Pune.

The e-Access offers ample braking performance from its front disc and rear drum setup. -Shot by Avdhoot A Kohle for Evo India

At the track the scooter, as you would expect a non-sporty, family-centric scooter to, was very predictable and easy to ride. It was agile but never twitchy and responded well to rider inputs. It’s not the sharpest in its category and it doesn’t claim to be. There were a few rumble strips and plastic speed breakers setup for us to gauge the ride quality. Here the rear felt like it rebounded a little faster than I would like. But I’ll reserve my judgement till I ride it in the real world. Braking is taken care of by a disc at the front and a drum at the rear. Braking, for the kind of performance the scooter offers, is plenty and easy to modulate.

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Suzuki e-Access features and charging

Suzuki very proudly told us that they don’t believe in gimmicks and will only offer those features that will genuinely add value to its target audience’s daily life. To that end, you have a 4.2-inch colour TFT screen that displays all essential information plus can also display turn-by-turn navigation, contextual information (weather, calendar) based on the route you’ve selected, and phone notifications if you pair with the Suzuki ride connect application. Storage-wise, you get a small cubby at the front with a USB charger that can easily swallow even the phablets of today. The main boot is a 17-litre unit that could have been bigger in my opinion but should be enough for day to day use. There’s also a cool feature where the boot lid locks in the open position allowing single hand operation.

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In terms of charging, the home charger that you get with the scooter will charge the scooter from 0-80 percent and 0-100 per cent in four hours thirty minutes and six hours and twenty minutes respectively. The DC fast chargers which are being setup at all Suzuki dealerships can do the 0-80 percent and 0-100 per cent top up in one hour twelve minutes and two hours and twelve minutes respectively.

A home charger will take the e-Access from 0-100 per cent charge in six hours and twenty minutes. -Shot by Avdhoot A Kohle for Evo India

Suzuki e-Access verdict

With the e-Access, Suzuki promises to deliver a safe, reliable, long lasting scooter with the benefit of Suzuki’s widespread dealer network. Which is why the emphasis on LFP batteries, consistent throttle response and so on were fundamental to the scooters development. The scooter will be available in the top 30 EV markets by June 2025 and in the rest of the countries by the end of the year. The DC fast chargers will be available in Suzuki dealerships in said 30 markets by June and in all other Suzuki dealerships by the end of the year. As far as the product is concerned, it seems like a solid, well put together and well thought out package that lives up to the Access name in most ways. There’s still a lot that remains to be seen by way of real world range and ride quality, but I suspect it will deliver well on those fronts. We don’t have the prices yet, but it will be in Suzuki’s best interest to price it very competitively against well established rivals like Ather, TVS and Bajaj with their tried and tested offerings. One thing is certain though, the e-Access will put up a valiant fight.