Ather Electric Scooter Production At New Plant
Ather Energy is planning to spread its presence to 40 cities by end of 2021
Ather Energy, the manufacturers of the India’s fastest electric scooters – 450X and Ather 450 Plus, are in an expansion mode. While the electric scooter maker had earlier announced plans to spread its presence across 40 cities by the end of 2021, the company is also opening up experience centers in 25 new cities by the end of June 2021 and will also have 500 charging points by the end of this year.
New Year, New Plant
Earlier, Ather 450X and Ather 450 Plus were produced at a plant in Whitefield in Bengaluru in Karnataka, the company now shifts to a new plant in Hosur in Tamil Nadu. The two wheeler EV maker has signed an MoU with the Government of Tamil Nadu for a 4 lakh sq ft facility from where it will produce the Ather 450 and lithium-ion batteries.
A pooja was conducted at the new plant with all the team members in attendance along with a lineup of the Ather 450X and 450 Plus scooters. This move comes at a time when both the State and Central Governments are pushing for electric two wheeler adoption with an updated FAME policy, lower GST and benefits on loans for electric vehicles.
The Tamil Nadu EV policy also includes 100 percent exemption on electricity tax to EV industry till 31st Dec 2025 besides stamp duty exemption on land procured for such plants.
Ather Energy Team At the New Plant In Hosur, Tamil Nadu.
Ather Hosur Plant
Tamil Nadu is an automobile manufacturing hub and the Ather unit in Hosur will be in close proximity to the company’s RD facility in Bengaluru and to the current and future supply base in the region. The new Ather plant in Hosur will also see the company ramp up production capacity. Ather Energy is looking to produce around 3,000 units per month from this new plant, which will later be expanded to 8,000 units by early 2022.
Tarun Mehta, the co-founder of Ather Energy, stated that from their older Bengaluru plant production was at an average of 300 units per month. These lower numbers were primarily due to the fact that the 450X was available only in 2 cities initially of Bengaluru and Chennai.
Now expansion of networks to new cities by the end of 2021 will see production increase correspondingly. The Hosur plant, besides producing the Ather range of electric scooters, will also produce batteries and the same plant will see the new Ather electric motorcycle being produced, though this is yet a few years away from launched.
Ather Ahmedabad Experience Center Opens This Week – 6th Feb 2021
Ather Grid Expansion Plans
Along with shifting to a new plant in Hosur, Ather Energy is also expanding its Grid Charging Network. As on date the company has 39 charging stations in Bengaluru and 14 in Chennai and have plans to increase this count to 6,500 by 2023 across 30 cities in the country and the target is to have one charging station every 4 kms in the cities where it sells its models.
Ather 450X and 450 Plus
At the end of last year, the company discontinued the Ather 450 scooter and replaced it with the 450X, 450 Plus. Ather 450X and Ather 450 Plus are been built on the same platform, and come in with improved hardware and software. The E-scooters receive 4G SIM card, Bluetooth connectivity and a 7 inch touchscreen dashboard with colour depth of 16M and a Snapdragon Quad-Core processor.
The Ather 450X is powered by a 2.6 kWh lithium ion battery pack with an electric motor generating 6 kW/28 Nm. It is capable of a range of 116 km on a single charge and is priced at Rs.1.59 lakhs. The Ather 450 Plus e-scooter is priced at Rs.1.39 lakhs.
Source: Bike - rushlane.com
