NE BUSINESS BUREAU
AHMEDBAD, JAN 6
Electric two-wheeler startup Ather Energy on Tuesday said it has launched its 450X, 450 Plus scooter in Ahmedabad and Surat cities in Gujarat. The pre-orders, dealership requests, and also the volume of requests for test rides have led Ather Energy to include the new market in Phase 2 of their expansion, a senior official of the company said.
The company had launched the Ather 450 in 2018.
“Our maiden model, Ather 450 was the outcome of four years of continuous work on R&D, design, prototype building, and testing, and improving the product to make it production worthy. The learnings from Ather 450 in terms of design, specifications, and production along with feedback from the owners have helped shape the Ather 450X and Ather 450 Plus,” Ather Energy Co-founder and CEO Tarun Mehta said.
The company is now looking forward to delivering new products across all cities, he added.
By the end of Q1 2021, Ather 450X will be on the roads of 27 cities – Bengaluru, Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Kochi, Kolkata, Ahmedabad, Delhi NCR, Mumbai, Pune, and Kozhikode in phase 1 and 16 additional cities in phase 2 – Mysore, Hubli, Jaipur, Indore, Panaji, Bhubaneshwar, Nasik, Surat, Chandigarh, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Guwahati, Nagpur, Noida, Lucknow, and Siliguri.
The Hero MotoCorp-backed startup currently has a presence in 11 locations across the country.
This expansion is the result of the strong demand from the consumers, dealerships, and also the test ride requests that the company has received since the launch of Ather 450X, he added.
Sharing the salient features of Ather 450X and 450 Plus with the media, Mehta said, “The Ather 450X and 450 Plus are the upgraded version of their predecessor Ather 450 and is the quickest and one of the smartest scooters in India, and comes in three new colors; 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 has introduced a new high-performance mode, ‘Warp’. Ather 450X can go from 0 to 40 kmph in just 3.3 sec in Warp mode, making it the quickest scooter in the 125cc category and the perfect choice to navigate through city traffic. The 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.”
Additionally, the electric scooter will have a 4G SIM card and Bluetooth connectivity, allowing riders to manage phone calls and 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 Google 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.
Pre-booking can be made both online by paying Rs 2,500 initial deposit (fully refundable) via the company’s website and offline mode.
In Ahmedabad, the products and pre-booking facilities are available at Kataria Automobiles’ Panjarapole showroom.
Ather 450X and 450 Plus are priced at Rs 1.55 lakh and Rs 1.85 lakh, ex-showroom, respectively.
The Government of Gujarat offers Rs 12,000 subsidy to college-going students, Mehta added.
Speaking about the production capacity, Tarun Mehta, CEO and Co-founder Ather Energy, said “We have been receiving pre-orders from not just the major metros but also several Tier II & III cities. Similarly, there have been more than 2000 requests for retail partnerships. To meet the overwhelming demand, we have set up a new plant at Osur in Tamil Nadu. By June we will reach the production capacity of 8,000 units as part of our Phase I plan which will be scalabe depending upon the demands in later phases.”
