[jnanesh]

The switching between Uber and Ola looking for a lower fare, the waiting time, getting drivers to understand my location and the occasional terrible driver was all starting to get to me.

I was staying in Hyderabad for a month and getting around was starting to become complicated if you wanted to explore the city, walking just doesn't make sense beyond a kilometer and cabs aren't explorer friendly. Rental cars are too expensive and that left me with the option of renting a bike or a scooter. I looked at multiple options(ONN bikes, Bounce) and narrowed it down to VOGO.

Pros

• Are Affordable

• Fuel is included

• Available at every other metro station/major junction

• Do away with having to call and wait for a Ola/ Uber

• Easy pickup/dropoff

• 24X7 availability

It's not all rosy obviously

• Bad maintenance of the bikes

• It's not a car, you get wet in the rain.

• Helmet (if you're a tourist and left yours at home)

• The application's UI could be a lot better.

• High demand during weekends.

• No rear view mirrors.

Signing up/KYC

Signing up was a breeze and took me 5 minutes, they need a photo of your driving license and a selfie(which is optional), which was approved within a few minutes and you're good to go ahead and book a scooter.

Booking

The app shows you the nearest VOGO station based on your location, where you can pickup a scooter. There is no pre-booking option but the app shows you which stations have scooters and how many are left. Although mostly right, a couple of times, though the app showed 2 scooters as available at the nearest station, upon reaching I was told that the scooters needed repairs and couldn't be rented. For safety, I took pictures before taking the scooter.




Everything in between

Scooters

While the lack of variety of vehicles to choose from doesn't bother me much, the lack of maintenance does. The brakes were loose, the silencer shield kept rattling, lots of scratches and dents. Terms and conditions state you shouldn't drive above 75km/h, but the truth is you dare not drive that fast with loose brakes, not to mention the rattling becomes a lot more irritating past 50km/h. Better maintenance is definitely necessary but you could put up with a few rattles for short trips.

They look fine but chances are the brakes don't work.



Pricing

VOGO charges you based on the distance traveled and time taken. Weekdays, they charge about Rs 4.5/km and weekends it goes upto 5.5/km, there isn't any surge pricing or anything of the sort. They also charge you Rs 0.12/min of rental time, which works out to Rs 36 for 5 hours, which is pretty cheap.


Fuel

Fuel is included in the price you pay which makes it exceptionally economical to get around on your own. If you do refuel, get a bill and you will be refunded. There is a little loophole I noticed though, when I refueled, the petrol bunk attendant gave me an empty signed bill and told me to fill it up myself. Although I asked him to do it (hand on heart),someone else could put in any amount they wanted, although limited by the tank capacity of the Activa.


Documents

No documents were present in the scooter and I was told that "police vogo scooters nahi pakhadte hein". Not sure what happens if they do stop you for some reason. A helmet was available in the scooters I booked but not all scooters have helmets.


Returning it

Drop it off at the nearest station or the original station where you picked it up from, based on your booking. Mention the fuel bills to be redeemed if any, they take a picture and return the bill. VOGO refunds the bills online based on your mode of payment. The attendants check the scooter for damage, final odometer reading and you're good to go. I recommend taking a picture after dropping the scooter off in case of any discrepancies.

[IshaanIan]

The rear view mirrors seem to have purposely been removed on all the vehicles how is this even legal and why has nobody acted against the company for offering and encouraging such nonsense?

[2000rpm]

Wow, 4.5 INR per KM plus time based pricing. If you consider 2 INR per KM on fuel. Thats INR 2.5 per KMS margin.

Technically a Scooter will breakeven in 28000 kms only!!! Assume 100 kms per day, thats less than a year!

Add to that the cost of parking stations, salaries, maintenance and insurance. They model can be profitable if it achieves scale, i.e. if they are able to increase the daily running per vehicle.

How is the legal liability managed in case of any accident? Why is the billing not GPS based? An odometer based reading will have scope for pilferage!

[blackwasp]

Attractive pricing and this might be a boon to many like me who use public transport but last mile connectivity is a hassle. I like that you don't have to drop off the scooter in the same place.

That said, unless a hefty deposit is taken every time, it will not dissuade people just treating the bikes like they want. The lack of maintenance is also a factor for me. And missing mirrors? Whats with that trend?

Overall I might be tempted to use this service, but will have to pass after taking second look.

[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

Wow, 4.5 INR per KM plus time based pricing. If you consider 2 INR per KM on fuel. Thats INR 2.5 per KMS margin.

Rs 4.5 seems to be the base price. I just checked the pricing in the app (see below screenshot) near my office location. As you can see, there is a base price of Rs 20 + Rs 6.35 per km + Rs 0.2/min time based price. Estimated fare is Rs 71.

In comparison, Uber or Ola auto costs more than Rs 112 and Uber moto or Ola bike costs Rs 73 for the similar distance. For longer distances (15 to 20 kms), Vogo seems to be much cheaper than Ola/Uber autos and slightly cheaper than Ola/Uber bike rides.





Also, fuel bill (Rs 2 per km) will be greatly reduced with EV scooters. For Ather 450 it will be just Rs 0.3 per km vs Rs 2 on petrol scooter. That is why most of these rental companies are keen to have EVs on their lineup. Drivezy (another rental platform) inc which Yamaha invested, is planning to start a EV subsidiary and plans to have 5000 Yamaha EC-05 scooters this year. Similarly, Bounce also started a separate EV rental platform as a subsidiary.

[speedmiester]

Originally Posted by 2000rpm

Wow, 4.5 INR per KM plus time based pricing. If you consider 2 INR per KM on fuel. Thats INR 2.5 per KMS margin.

All such companies are riding on VC money, till the time they are flush with funds such predatory pricing will continue.

I feel it is highly irresponsible for such companies to not keep relevant documents in the scooters and remove the ORVMs.
Don't know what all they are bypassing in the name of growth and numbers.
Also I feel most of the people renting such scooters break rules with impunity as they don't own the scooters. Not sure how these companies manage such violations.

Atleast it is better than Bounce, in which you can drop it off wherever you feel like it. I have seen Bounce scooters abandoned on flyovers, ditched on the roadside and even in a ditch along the NICE road. The cost of maintenance and getting these scooters back on road is very high.

[neeravnaik]

Helmet has to be available along with the bike otherwise it is encouraging people to drive without it. They will not bother with police as they can just abandon the bike if they see police checking. How are they expecting people to carry helmets around is strange

[alpha1]

Wish something like this comes up in tourist destinations like Goa!

[WhiteKnight]

I see many of these vehicles lying by the road side in my area. On the road, these are mostly driven rash. Overall, the concept looks like a way to blow investors money.

[Ashkait Kapoor]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Wish something like this comes up in tourist destinations like Goa!

Not going to happen. For the very same reason why ola and uber haven't come up in goa.

On hindsight, many riders making use of these rental services are abusing them outright. They will try and race you, follow no rules and vandalise the vehicle with no second thought.

[ashikthomson]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Wish something like this comes up in tourist destinations like Goa!

I believe companies including Uber and Ola will have discussions with taxi unions of respective cities before beginning their service in that city. This is to fix pricing which is diplomatic to both customers and taxi drivers. Thats why we see large pricing difference in services across cities.
In places like Goa where scooter rentals are a really wide local network, they won't allow any companies to operate at per kilometer basis ( read : constant disturbances and nuisance towards customers using their service) , when they are reaping huge profits by renting scooters on daily charge.

[sovenkat]

Why are all the rear view mirrors missing ? is it stolen or the VOGO company has taken this action ?

Originally Posted by jnanesh

I was staying in Hyderabad for a month and getting around was starting to become complicated if you wanted to explore the city, walking just doesn't make sense beyond a kilometer and cabs aren't explorer friendly. Rental cars are too expensive and that left me with the option of renting a bike or a scooter. I looked at multiple options(ONN bikes, Bounce) and narrowed it down to VOGO.

[SubodhRage]

I was in Bangalore for three months this Summer(May to August) for my internship, and I would like to present my thoughts on this startup and their brilliant functioning.

Let's go through all the points mentioned in the main points and briefly discuss them one-by-one. While the main post lays out the pros perfectly, I would like to point out a few things in the Cons in favour of the company.

1. Bad maintenance of the vehicles.
There is only so much a year-old startup can do. The company has the policy to provide periodic (one every two months is what a VOGO stand handler told me) repairs and services to the scooters. Being on the receiving end of such a game-changing product/service, it should also be the responsibility of the consumer to take care of the vehicle for the time it is being given to him.

2. Helmet or the lack thereof
The company started with an entirely optimistic approach of providing not only one but two helmets(one each for the rider and the pillion) during its initial months. Not only that but it also tried to replace for every helmet "lost". From what I saw in Bangalore, most of the people renting out VOGO would "borrow the helmets" and never return them. I used to live in Kormangala region and the VOGO stand near went from always having two helmets along with each scoot (during May and initial days of June) to rarely having a helmet every time I went there during August end.
How hungry are we for stealing "free stuff" that even such economy-grade helmets cannot be deposited back after the ride ends? Heck! I have also seen people use VOGO or Bounce branded helmets while riding personal vehicles. [-_-]
For this point, I hold the public at fault. IMAO, VOGO should never have provided helmets along with their rides.

4. Rear-view Mirrors
The same thing as above, probably. Although since I didn't face this issue during my rides in BGLR then, I refrain from commenting on this any further.

5. Documentations of the Vehicle
I didn't particularly face any issues to the lack of the registration, and other vehicle documents in Bangalore as mostly the police over there would check the driving license and do a breath-analyser test and let you go once you pass it.

I hope I don't come across as aggressive and I have no intention of putting my points across in that way. I just felt that a post should be written stating the fault of the public while using the rented vehicles.

[i74js]

Originally Posted by alpha1

Wish something like this comes up in tourist destinations like Goa!

Goa biking is managed by multiple mafia groups very similar to Leh where selfdriven cars will have to bear all sorts of resistance including stone pelting !

[jnanesh]

Originally Posted by sovenkat

Why are all the rear view mirrors missing ? is it stolen or the VOGO company has taken this action ?

My guess is people flicked them to make a quick buck and VOGO hasn't replaced them or decided not to put them back because people will keep flicking them, like the helmets.

The Activas seem to be customized for VOGO since the headlight switch is non existent and the LED lights are ON the minute you switch on the scooter with no way to switch them off.