Joy e-Bike Mihos: First Ride Review

Why buy it?

- Good handling package

- Comfortable ergonomics 

- Retro appeal

Why avoid it?

- Lots of quality issues

- Expensive for what it offers

With a growing demand for electric two-wheelers in India, a number of EV makers are introducing new products in the market. One such EV manufacturer is Vadodara-based Joy e-Bike, and the company has recently introduced the Mihos electric scooter in the country. Claimed to be an indestructible electric scooter, the Joy e-Bike Mihos competes against the likes of the Ola S1 Pro and the Ather 450X Gen 3. But, is it really indestructible? And should you consider buying it over its well-established rivals? Let’s find out.

The Joy e-Bike Mihos features modern retro styling, with design elements taken from the Vespas and Lambrettas of yore. So, you get a round LED headlamp, a wide front apron, chrome mirrors and a spacious seat. However, elements like the TFT display, 12-inch wheels and LED lighting lend a touch of modernity to the package.

Joy e-bike Mihos

• 110 kg
;

Avg. Ex-showroom price

₹ 1,49,000

One of the major USPs of the Joy e-Bike Mihos is the material used for its construction. Almost all the body panels, barring the headlamp housing, are constructed using a material called Poly Dicyclopentadiene or PDCPD, which is resistant to extremely high impacts. This makes it virtually indestructible and we did test it out by hammering it with a fairly heavy mallet.

That said, the Mihos suffers from poor build quality, as we did notice quite a few inconsistent panel gaps, and poorly finished parts on almost all the scooters during the test ride. Even the switchgear felt low rent, and it did come off while operating. Moreover, the seat hinge was quite flimsy and it felt like a firm push will break it easily. On the positive side though, the company mentioned that these were hand-assembled pre-production scooters, and the final versions will have all these issues rectified before they are rolled out into the market in April 2023.

As for the ergonomics, the Joy e-Bike Mihos gets an accessible seat height of 750mm and comfortable ergonomics. However, the wide seat makes it difficult to place your feet flat on the ground, and at 5’7” tall, I found myself tip-toeing most of the time.

Joy e-Bike is offering a long list of features on the Mihos electric scooter. These include a 4.3-inch colour TFT instrument cluster that displays a host of information like range, speed, battery health, riding modes and more. It also gets Bluetooth connectivity along with turn-by-turn navigation, and connected tech features like vehicle tracking, geo-fencing, riding behaviour and more. Other features include a USB charger and LED lighting inside the under-seat storage.

Coming to its cycle parts, the Joy e-Bike Mihos rides on 12-inch wheels that are wrapped on 90/90 section tyres. The suspension setup includes telescopic forks up front and a mono-shock at the rear. On the other hand, the scooter drops anchors with the help of disc brakes at both ends. How well does the setup work? More on that in the later part of the review.

The Mihos electric scooter is powered by a 1.5kWh hub-mounted electric motor that produces around 2bhp and 250Nm of peak torque. The scooter gets a 2.96kWh Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt (NMC) battery pack that is claimed to offer an IDC range of 130km and a 0-100 per cent charging time of 5hr. It gets three riding modes - Eco, Sport and Hyper, which alters the throttle response and speed according to the mode selected.

Now, we only rode the Mihos around a smooth and technical go-kart track, so our first impressions are limited to just that. Nonetheless, the performance of the electric scooter is just about adequate and isn’t something to write home about. Even in Hyper mode, it builds momentum linearly and struggles to reach its claimed top speed of 63kph. On the go-kart track, I could only manage a max speed of around 45kph on the straight patches. In Eco mode, the throttle response is dialled down even further, along with a claimed top speed of 35kph. Although the Sport mode offers marginal improvement in throttle response, it’s the Hyper mode that you’d always want to ride the scooter in. Needless to say, the range drops to 65km in Hyper mode.

On the upside though, the Joy e-Bike Mihos impresses in the handling department. The under-bone chassis offers good lateral stiffness, and the scooter changes directions effortlessly. It tips into corners without much effort and maintains the line beautifully.

The only negative is that the side stand is placed too far low and scrapes badly every time you lean the scooter on your left. What’s even scarier is that if you are carrying more speed, the side stand tends to alter your line, throwing you in the opposite direction of the corner.

Now, we rode the scooter on the smooth go-kart track, so unless we test the Mihos on urban roads, we can’t offer an opinion on its ride quality just yet. However, from our experience on the track, the scooter seems to run a stiffer suspension setup. On the other hand, the braking performance felt adequate for the scooter. While the brakes offered a decent bite, there was a lot of brake fade over the course of the track session. Moreover, there was a lot of brake noise from some of the scooters, every time we braked hard.

With a pre-subsidy price tag of Rs 1.35 lakh (ex-showroom India), the Joy e-Bike Mihos comes across as an expensive alternative to its well-established rivals like the Ather 450X Gen3, Ola S1 Pro, TVS iQube S and the Bajaj Chetak Electric. More so, when you factor in the kind of performance and finesse that the competition offers.

Although the Mihos offers decent performance and good handling, it needs a lot of fine-tuning when it comes to quality control and fit and finish. Now, Joy e-Bike did mention that the scooters we sampled were pre-production units, and the production versions will have all the issues sorted before their final roll-out in April 2023. However, unless we test the production unit in real-world conditions, it will be difficult to recommend the Mihos over its established rivals.

Photography by Kaustubh Gandhi