Ather Energy

Ather Energy was founded in 2013 by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain. In early 2014, it received ₹4.5 million (US$63,000) from the Technology Development Board under Department of Science and Technology, IIT Madras and Srini V Srinivasan, IIT alumnus and founder of Aerospike.[3] In December 2014, Flipkart founders, Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal invested $1 million as the seed capital.[4] Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal expressed a positive sentiment towards the company and showed inclination towards energy-efficient vehicles. In May 2015, it received $12 million from Tiger Global for investments in development, testing, production and the launch of the vehicle.[5] On 23 February 2016, the company unveiled its smart scooter S340 at a technology conference Surge in Bangalore.[6][7] Hero MotoCorp invested ₹205 crore (US$29 million) in the Series B round of funding in October 2016 and gained a 32.31% stake in the company. It invested again in 2018 to the tune of ₹130 crore (US$18 million).[8][9]

In May 2019 Ather Energy raised an investment of $51 million in its latest round of funding, led by Sachin Bansal’s investment of $32 million. Ather Energy was one of the earliest start-up investments of Sachin Bansal when he invested $0.5 million in the firm as an Angel investor in 2014. Hero MotoCorp has converted its Convertible Debt of $19 million as a part of this round. In addition to this, InnoVen Capital has extended an $8 million venture debt.[10]

In December 2019, Ather Energy signed a MoU with Government of Tamil Nadu to set up a 400,000 sq ft (37,000 m²) manufacturing plant for electrical vehicles in Hosur. The invested amount will be around ₹635 crore (US$89 million)[11][12]

The company added two new products to its portfolio, the Ather 450X & the Ather 450 Plus in January 2020.[13] The Ather 450X is a premium electric scooter built from ground up by Ather. A step above the Ather 450 both in features and performance, the Ather 450X has been meticulously designed to redefine the two-wheeler riding experience in India.  

Ather Energy raised a fresh round of funds from Hero MotoCorp, in July 2020 as a part of its Series C round.[14] The $11.4 million will be used by the company to aggressively expand its presence and scale to 20 cities by the end of 2021.

The company has announced an online-only purchase model for selling the product with doorstep service. It had set up its manufacturing unit in Whitefield, Bangalore which commenced production in 2018 with capacity of 600 vehicles per week.[15][16] The company has disclosed the price of the Ather 450 to be ₹113,715 (US$1,600).[17] It also establishes Ather Grid, an electric vehicle charging infrastructure in cities it is present in. The company has set up over 38 fast charging points in Bengaluru and 14 charging points in Chennai as of July 2020[18] 2019.[16]

Ather will be setting up its new 400,000sq ft facility in Hosur, Tamil Nadu by the end of 2020. The new facility will be designed to produce 100,000 units annually, and is scalable to half a million units.[11]

Ather 450

The Ather 450 is constructed using an all-aluminium frame, comes with a 5.4 kW (7.2 BHP) Brushless DC electric motor, and a 2.4 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. The scooter can accelerate to 40 km/h in 3.9 seconds, attain a top speed of 80 km/h, and can travel 75 km on one charge in city-riding conditions (107 km in the Indian driving cycle).

The scooter features a 7-inch touchscreen dashboard, and comes with features like on-board navigation, diagnostics, all-LED lighting, auto-cancelling indicators, smartphone integration, and cloud connectivity to send and receive data from Ather's servers.

AtherGrid Location

Ather has set up its own charging network, dubbed Ather Grid, in Bangalore & Chennai. These DC-fast-charging stations use Ather's proprietary charging method and connector to charge the Ather scooters at a rate of 1 km/min. The charging points are also equipped with a 3-pin socket to supply AC power to other electric vehicles that do not use Ather's connector. Other vehicles can connect to the charging point and start charging using the Ather Grid app for iOS and Android.[19]

Ather has plans to set up around 60 points in Bangalore & Chennai, and set up more Ather Grid in other cities as it expands. Ather also sets up a home charging point at customer's homes which will charge the Ather 450 to 80% in 2 hours 40 minutes and to 100% in 4 hours 18 minutes.[20]

Unlike most auto manufacturers in India, Ather Energy owns and operates its own Experience Centers. The company claims that this helps in maintaining end-to-end customer experience. The Experience Centers, dubbed AtherSpace, are aimed at increasing product understanding, providing customer education, and giving a first-hand experience of the product to consumers. Test rides are also provided at the Experience Centers and can be pre-booked on the company's website.

Experience Centers have components of the scooter displayed with useful information provided alongside each of them. There is also a fully built naked scooter on display to show the chassis of the scooter.

Ather currently has two Experience centers in India - One at 100-ft road Indiranagar, Bangalore and another one at Nungambakkam, Chennai.

The Ather 450X is a significant step-up from Ather 450 with improvements across multiple key parameters. Ather 450X is the outcome of an award winning design philosophy and is quicker, more intelligent than its predecessor and comes in three new colours; Grey, Green and White. The scooter is powered with a 6kW PMSM motor, a new 2.9 kWh lithium ion battery and comes with 4 riding modes. In addition to Eco, Ride and Sport, Ather is introducing a new high performance mode, 'Warp'. Ather 450X can go from 0 to 40 kmph in just 3.3 sec in the Warp mode, making it the quickest electric  scooter in its category and the perfect choice to navigate through city traffic.[21]

The revolutionary improvement in its battery has enabled a projected Indian Drive Cycle (IDC) range of 116 km and a real life range of 85 km in city conditions. Ather 450X will also charge 50% faster than before at 1.5km per minute, making it the fastest charging rate in the electric two-wheeler category. [22]

Ather 450X will have a 4G sim card and Wifi along with Bluetooth connectivity, allowing riders to answer phone calls and manage music on the touchscreen dashboard. The new 7” touchscreen dashboard, comes with a color depth of 16M and a Snapdragon Quad Core processor. Ather 450X utilises Android Open Source to offer map navigation, On-board diagnostics and other unique features like Over-the-air updates, Auto Indicator off and Guide-me-home lights.

The Ather mobile app will continue to offer personalised ride statistics, charging status, push navigation and more functionalities like theft & tow detection, live location & vehicle state tracking, voice assistant and welcome lights. Ather 450X will support connected accessories like smart helmets and tyre pressure monitoring systems (TPMS).[23]

The scooter will be available in Bengaluru, Chennai Delhi-NCR, Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Kolkata,and Hyderabad before the end of 2020.[24] It will be available in Coimbatore by first quarter of 2021.[25] The electric scooter manufacturer aims to enter at least two international markets by March 2021, likely in South East Asia, because of the high demand for electric two wheelers. [26][27]

• Gogoro
• Battery electric vehicle
• Charging station
• Electric car
• Electric car use by country
• List of modern production plug-in electric vehicles
• Plug-in electric vehicle

• Official website