The Bajaj Qute is an Auto Rickshaw on 4 Wheels, Literally!

Originally dubbed the RE60, the journey of Bajaj’s first four wheeler wasn’t exactly smooth sailing right from it’s debut at the 2012 Auto Expo. For quite a long time, or 7 years to be precise, Bajaj has been eager to introduce their first ever four wheeler to the domestic market. Unfortunately, they had to keep their launch on hold as Quadricycles (the new official term given for this segment) were forbidden for transport usage. Ironically, the very same vehicle that was banned from selling in its home market, is being exported to various markets abroad. Thankfully, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways have officially recognised the new segment, marking the introduction of India’s first ever Quadricycle.
Before the arrival of the Qute into the market, the closest alternative to a “Quadricycle” that was accessible to the public was the Tata Nano in terms of pricing and size, however, that was an actual car, which we shouldn’t call the Bajaj Qute just because it has four wheels.

Fast forward to spring 2019 and after a lot of hurdles, Bajaj has finally been given the green light to sell the Qute in its home market at a starting price of 2.48 lakhs ex-showroom, which, in my opinion is Qu(i)te steep. Interestingly, the Qute can be bought for commercial, as well as private use. In other words, you can drive a Qute with a white licence plate.

The Qute is available in two variants, Petrol and CNG, however, today’s focus will solely be on the CNG variant as the purpose of the vehicle is aimed towards commercial usage as CNG is the most popular choice of fuel in the taxi segment and today, we’re here to see what makes the Qute a potential replacement for the iconic, yet notorious auto rickshaw, alternatively called the tuk-tuk in other countries.

The biggest Unique selling proposition of the Qute is the fact that it has borrowed some characteristics from regular cars. For example, its got 4 wheels, doors, car-like headlights, bumper and an actual body shell to keep its occupants protected (not from an impact, but from foreign objects like dust).

Despite possessing some of its car-like characteristics, the Qute still carries a few traits of a rickshaw. For example, the Qute is about as compact as it can get. The dimensions are more or less similar to traditional auto rickshaws. The engine on the Qute is also borrowed from the company’s auto rickshaws.
The rear does not have a tailgate and the only way to access the rear cargo area is by folding down the rear seats, just like the original Tata Nano.
The “tallboy” design and narrow stance is more prominent when viewed from this angle.

12" rims are standard on the Qute, whose rims are 2 inches larger than the RE. It is important to note that the Qute does not get disc brakes even in front. Interestingly, the rims sport a 4 lug nut pattern and this is mainly because Bajaj aims to export the Qute to European markets where vehicles with less than four lug nuts each wheel is banned by the European Union, while actual cars like the Datsun Redi-Go, Renault Kwid and the Nano sport 3 lug nut pattern.

Amazingly, the Qute does carry out similar traits, not only to regular road cars, but even supercars. One of them is the front hinged, plastic “bonnet”. However, in this case, under the bonnet lies a small cargo area that is enough to fit, maybe one backpack at best.

Just like the bonnet, the doors are also made of plastic, all in the interest of saving as much weight as possible, making the Qute probably the lightest four wheeler in the country, tipping the scale at a mere 500 kilograms (for the CNG variant)

Speaking of doors, here’s an idea of how thin the doors actually are. In most other cars, I would not be able to hold the door as I currently am, as I would have to stretch my palm in most cases. The doors are so light, they tend to move around even in the calmest of winds.

Although 155mm of ground clearance may not sound like much on paper, the neat underbody ensures that nothing is exposed to the ground, protecting it from potential damage from foreign obstacles.

This is the place where the CNG tank gets filled. As convenient and cheap CNGs are to run, they come with some major disadvantages. Even in major cities like Mumbai, there are not many CNG pumps across the city. At most part of the day, taxis (The primary user of CNG) form kilometers of lines outside the stations just to fill up CNG, which means, in a day, taxi drivers waste at least one and a half hour, just to fill up their tanks. The CNG version will see a lot more demand if more CNG pumps are built across the city.

Since the Qute does not have an air conditioner, these air vents provide ventilation from the outside air, however, if you decide to take the Qute out on a hot and sunny day, good luck!

More air vents have been provided inside the door, so the passengers can receive a bit of ventilation from each side.

The A-pillar too gets these kind of vents, to provide ventilation to the driver, however, the temperature of air flowing in depends on the weather outside. I personally would avoid driving this vehicle on a hot summer afternoon in Mumbai, which is exactly what I did and within two minutes of driving, I was drenched in sweat.

In order to save weight, the windows are made of transparent plastic. Also, they are not your typical car windows which roll up and down. Instead, it’s a two piece window and thankfully, both pieces are movable and slide in both directions.

The driver’s and passenger’s door panels feature two door pockets. While the upper pocket is fairly large enough to place smaller items like a smaller smartphone, the lower pocket is M-A-S-S-I-V-E. As you can see, there’s a file that fits very easily inside and you can even place a laptop inside this pocket as well, however, it is important to note that the pockets are made entirely of metal and may potentially cause visual damage to your devices, hence, it is advisable to cover your laptop and other devices.

Although it is hard to judge with the plastic covers on the seats, after sitting on the seat, it got me thinking if the front seats were somewhat identical to the jump seats on the third row of the Mahindra Scorpio or, even the Tata Safari! They’re really tiny as expected and the backrest is extremely short, making it unsafe in a whiplash situation. While the front seats (thankfully) slide forward and backwards, each seat is a single piece and they do not recline. No, they’re not even at an obtuse angle, they’re in fact at the ‘right’ angle (90 degrees). Yet, it felt like I was sitting in an acute angle. Of course, the seats were not meant to be comfortable, but believe me, this is luxury after sitting in an Auto Rickshaw and I was able to find the best possible driving position.

Below the driver and passenger seats, lies a CNG tank with an 8 kilogam capacity, while the fuel economy of the CNG version is an astonishing 43km/kg. This means, the Qute could potentially do a very impressive 344 kilometers on a single tank! (Or shall we consider 300km in the real world?)
In the petrol version, this would be an extra storage compartment.
The Qute comes with a remote to control the volume, or the music that is playing from the head unit. Some of you may be thinking, why does a vehicle this small even need a remote? Well, it’s really useful if you’re a passenger sitting in a commercial Qute and instead of asking the driver to turn down the volume, you, the passenger can simply turn down the volume by yourself, especially since having a conversation with others is a little cumbersome.(More on that later)

Since the Qute is measures only 1312 mm in width, just 12mm more than its three wheeler counterpart, you could expect the Qute to also accommodate its passengers slightly better comfort compared to the RE. Due to its flat design, two well built adults and a child can easily fit in the rear bench with no problem at all, however, three well built adults would be a bit of a tight squeeze.
While it may look like there is ample leg room, the seat base is actually very short and there is literally no under thigh support, as expected from this class of vehicles.

Though it may not seem like there’s much legroom on offer, you must consider the fact that the Qute is merely 2752mm long. There are two fingers of space available after sliding the front seat backwards for my comfortable driving position (I’m 5' 10") and yes, there is more legroom in the Qute than the legroom on Spicejet’s economy class!

While I appreciate Bajaj for including proper 3-point seatbelts for the rear seat occupants (remember, the Tata Nano only gets lap belts for the rear seat occupants), the seatbelts are not retractable.

As mentioned earlier, there is no tailgate which can be opened and hence, the only way to access the rear cargo is by folding down the rear seats. Kudos to Bajaj for adding the option to split the seat into half, as the designers at Hyundai couldn’t do the same for the Creta (on select versions, of course).

Due to the extremely short seat base and a flat floor, it is surprisingly easy to walk around this area, of course while bending down, but yet, it is easier to move around in the Qute than in literally every other car.

The layout of the dashboard is minimalistic, yet functional, neither pleasing, nor offensive. The symmetrical layout allows Bajaj to easily configure its steering orientation for export markets and despite the speedometer being in the centre, it is easy to watch the gauge from the driver’s seat. There’s a glovebox on each side of the dashboard. Notice the dashboard-mounted sequential gear lever in the centre.
The Qute’s steering wheel is somewhat inspired by the Mercedes S Class (W222). Both vehicles sport a two spoke steering wheel. Unfortunately, the similarities end here.

The glovebox, although not too big, is fairly sized for the size of the vehicle. While you can store all the important vehicle documents on one side, you can store other personal items on the other.

The Qute comes with a music system that comprises of the usual Radio, USB, SD and AUX, leaving bluetooth aside. What’s not very usual is the fact that it’s available on this vehicle. Yes, it’s a fantastic feature to keep the passengers entertained during the ride.

There are many car-like features that have started to trickle into Auto Rickshaws (although the Qute is too sophisticated to be called one), like a 12V charging socket.

The squarish speedometer has markings in green and red. The green marking indicates the most economical speed and the red indicates that the Qute has reached its top speed and cannot go any faster than that or else the engine will overheat. Asking for a tachometer would have been a bit too much, wouldn’t it?
Although almost no major country other than the UK or US use the imperial system, Bajaj has still decided to place the imperial markings on the speedometer. Do they plan to export the Qute to the UK?

It’s unusual to use a toggle switch for the hazard lights, whereas every vehicle uses a regular button for the same function.

Bajaj has smartly placed the stephney, hidden behind a cover, below the dashboard. The lack of a centre console mounted to the floor allows for easy movement between the driver and passenger sides.
Even the handbrake does not interfere in this area, as it is not located anywhere near its usual place. Instead, it is located on the right hand side of the driver’s seat, which I think is a good idea as far as safety is concerned, as no one other than the driver has control over the handbrake

This label, which contains safety instructions of gas usage, is located on the cover of the stephney

The Qute deploys rather spartan 216cc, twin-spark, liquid-cooled, single-cylinder motor fed by CNG and produces an astonishing 11 horsepower and an earth shattering 16 nm of torque. Yes, there’s a petrol version which makes slightly more power and torque, but as mentioned earlier, the focus would be on CNG as this type of fuel is popular for the intention of this Quadricycle. While this is like an Auto Rickshaw engine, and sounds exactly like one, this one is a slight upgrade from the engine found on its three wheeler counterpart.
The Qute is not going to pass any refinement test, but inside the cabin, it feels a lot more refined than what it feels in a traditional tuk tuk.

What I really like about driving the Qute is simply how tractable the engine is! Don’t let the power and torque figures fool you! The short gearing ratio allows to move forward and pick up speeds without any hesitancy.
I could tackle the worst speedbumps on second gear without having to slip the clutch and still, the vehicle pulled in Qu(i)te a clean manner, suggesting its linear power delivery.

I took it to worli seaface before the rush hour began and as the road is good, people normally maintain a speed of 60–65km/h. Guess what? I too had no problem keeping up with the fast paced traffic, that is with three people on board.
On the flip side, the Qute can reach a maximum of 70 km/h before hitting the rev limiter on the fifth gear.

The clutch is extremely light and easy to use and provides a decent amount of feedback for the torque on offer. It does require a little bit of slipping while moving from standstill.
The accelerator positioning is Qu(i)te flawed. Its depressed position lies far behind the depressed position of the brake and clutch. Over that, both of them are far away from each other, which made it extremely difficult for me to constantly move my right foot between the accelerator and brake.

The brakes are extremely weak. To begin with, the brake pedal provides little to no feedback. I honestly was really scared to drive the Qute at anything above 55 km/h. At anything over this speed, putting a medium amount of input on the brake pedal was ineffective and did little to slow down the Qute. Any more input than that and the wheels would lock up. What doesn’t help is the fact that the front wheels too use drum brakes, hence the weak stopping power.
Although the Qute remained stable enough while keeping up with fast paced traffic, I would personally recommend you to keep your speed under constant scrutiny.

There is no power steering on offer. What this means is that the steering could get really heavy and cumbersome at parking speeds. While the small dimensions allow you to park literally anywhere, the heavy steering actually robs the ease of parking this vehicle.
While building speed, the steering got a little lighter than it was at parking speeds. Yet, it felt extremely well connected, direct and provided a decent amount of feedback making it a fun toy to corner around, until you start to experience some severe body roll. While taking it through a corner really hot, I encountered a lot of body roll, to an extent where two wheels were almost up in the air. Yet, the Qute is obviously less prone to rollover than the vehicle it aims to replace.
To my surprise, the ride quality was Qu(i)te plush by segment standards. While it is nowhere close to a vehicle with a decent ride quality, it was miles ahead of its traditional three wheeler counterparts. While auto rickshaws can break your back even while riding over the tiniest of undulations, the Qute actually handled slightly worse potholes almost like a regular car. Of course, the Qute is nowhere as plush as a regular car, but hey! Your auto ride just got a lot more comfortable, isn’t it?

Bajaj has deployed a five speed sequential gearbox onto the Qute, straight out of a racecar! The shift action feels extremely solid to use and every upshift and downshift is followed by a very loud clicking sound. To upshift, you push the lever up, and to downshift, you pull the lever down, which should have been the other way round for the sake of ergonomics. Reverse gear can be activated by lifting the collar up and pulling the gear lever down, only while the vehicle is in neutral.

Do you think the Qute is a logical replacement to the traditional auto rickshaw?
This answer could be qu(i)te subjectve.

The price tag is very steep, turning away potential customers who wish to upgrade from their good ol’ rick.
Despite the steep price tag, the drivers would be able to recover the costs quickly, even if they continued to charge auto rickshaw-fares.

Although the Qute costs Rs 1.53 per kilometer to run, which is ONLY 9 paisa higher than the Bajaj RE, the large CNG tank will allow the drivers of the Qute to gain advantage by spending half the time in queue and instead, ferrying passengers.

While frequent auto rickshaw commuters will miss commuting on a three over the coming years, it surely is time for both, the riders and drivers to upgrade.
The main advantages the Qute has over its potential predecessor as a passenger is the fact that it has a proper body shell and will protect you from rain and for the driver, it’s got four wheels, making it less prone to toppling over, an actual steering wheel and a tank large enough to halve your time spent in queues. Interestingly, the Qute CNG is cheaper to run than an average motorcycle!