Prathamesh Sawant – one of the first owners of 450x Series 1 in Mumbai. Image – @the_hairmonster
Ather currently has the 450x and the 450 Plus electric scooters on offer
Ather Energy has opened their first experience centre in Mumbai today. Located at the popular Linking Road in Bandra, this state of the art showroom is called Ather Space. After Bangalore and Chennai, Mumbai is the 3rd city to get Ather Space.
In the coming months, more cities in India will be getting their own Ather Space. Hyderabad and Ahmedabad Ather experience centres will soon open for public. Ahmedabad recently got one of its first Ather Grid electric charging station.
Increasing Production
Backed by Tiger Global, Hero MotoCorp and founders of Flipkart Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal, Ather Energy was founded in 2013 and since then has raised $102.2 million. It has now been announced that Ather looks to intensify its production capacity.
Ather Energy has shifted its production base to Hosur in Tamil Nadu from its current manufacturing facility in Bengaluru, Karnataka. Recently, the last unit of Ather 450 rolled out of this facility.
Ather Space in Mumbai
By setting up this new manufacturing facility Ather will be ramping up its production which will help to manufacture 3,000 units in its initial stages and further expand to 8,000 units by the first half of this year. Ather has announced to expand its footprint beyond the 11 cities targeted for the first phase in November 2020. By March 2021, the company aims to have presence in 16 more cities – so total 27 cities will have Ather on offer by March 2021.
Current Availability
11 cities of 1st phase are Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, Kochi, Coimbatore, Chennai and Kozhikode. Previously Ather has managed to produce only 300 units of 450 per month on average.
This modest number was mainly due to the restricted availability of the e-scooter in just 2 cities – Bengaluru and Chennai. Other factors such as lack of widespread charging infrastructure and premium pricing also led to slow sales volume.
Ather Space in Mumbai
Ather Energy entered the Indian market with the launch of the country’s first intelligent electric scooter in the form of Ather 450 in 2018. This was followed by the launch of 450X and 450 Plus, more powerful and premium version of the standard 450 in January last year.
Ather Experience Center in Mumbai – Ather Space
They also launched a limited-run Series-1 Collector’s Edition of the 450X exclusively available for those who had booked it even before the brand had officially launched it. It is this special e-scooter, that is now being delivered in Mumbai via the new Ather Space Experience Centers.
Powertrain & Performance
Ather 450X draws its power from a permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) which is backed by a 2.9 kWh lithium-ion battery pack. This powertrain is good enough to produce an output of 6kW (8 bhp) of power and 26 Nm of peak torque.
Ather Experience Center in Mumbai – Ather Space
It has a strong performance which can make it sprint from 0-40 kmph in just 3.3 seconds thus making it one of the quickest scooters in comparison to the 125cc segment of scooters. It is offered with three ride modes- Eco, Ride and Sport along with an additional high-performance ‘Warp’ mode.
Source: Bike - rushlane.com
