Ather Energy currently has the capacity to manufacture 5,000 electric scooters a month in addition to building its own lithium-ion battery pack
Electric two-wheelers, especially scooters have seen tremendous growth in the last few months, thanks to the push being given to electric mobility by the Government of India. Ather Energy has come out as one of the primary contributors in the electric mobility space in our country for the past couple of years.
The Bengaluru-based EV startup is currently the third-largest manufacturer in the electric two-wheeler space in India after Hero Electric and Okinawa. The company currently retails two electric scooters under its folds including 450 Plus and 450X. Ather in recent times has accelerated its network expansion across the country.
Ather Electric Scooter Sales Feb 2022
Where petrol scooter sales are on a decline, Ather has recorded a YoY growth of 140 percent in comparison to February 2021. The EV manufacturer has clocked a cumulative sales volume of 2,042 scooters in February 2022. Ather sold about 850 electric scooters in Feb 2021 – translating in a YoY growth of more than 140%. In Jan 2022, Ather had sold 2,825 scooters – translating into a decline of 27% MoM.
The low numbers despite growing demand are a result of the global semiconductor chip shortage reeling the automotive industry for more than a year. The ongoing crisis has led to the disruption in the supply chain management which is why the company is unable to keep pace with the rising demand. Ather claims only a fraction of the pre-pending orders were cleared in February.
Setting Up New Charging Grids
The company is hopeful of improvement of the market situation in the next 2-3 months where supplier partners are able to reduce the demand-supply gap. On the other hand, Ather signed an MoU with Govt. of Karnataka to install 1000 charging grids across the state to help make EVs go mainstream. This development was confirmed by the CEO of Ather Energy, Tarun Mehta, on his official Twitter account.
Ather has also laid out its growth plan for the next few years. Over the next three years, the EV manufacturer plans to increase its annual production capacity to one million scooters from 400,000 by the end of 2022, install 5,000 fast chargers across India, develop new products and increase its network to 600 stores.
Other developments
Ather currently has 29 retail stores spread across 24 cities. More than 300 fast-charging Ather Grid Points are available across these cities. The EV firm has plans to expand its footprint to 100 cities across the country by March 2023. Around 150 experience centres will be set up.
On a slightly different topic, Ather Energy was recently announced as the principal sponsor of Gujarat Titans for a period of two years. The Ahmedabad-based franchise is one of two new additions to the Indian Premier League (IPL).
