After successfully launching their state of the art electric scooters and charging infrastructure in Bangalore, Ather Energy is now getting ready to launch the same in Chennai. Ahead of that, the company has started testing their scooters in the state of Tamil Nadu.
Launch of Ather scooters in Chennai is scheduled for the month of June 2019. Chennai is the second city in India where Ather scooters will be launched. The company has plans of launching electric scooters and charging infrastructure in many cities across India over the next few years.
Ather scooters are off to a good start in Bangalore, where order books are full all the way till Sep 2019. For Chennai customers, the company has opened an option to register their interest via official website. “The ‘Pre-Order Interest’ option on the company’s website gives consumers priority deliveries, early access to book the Ather 450 & Ather 340 and invitations to exclusive events and test rides.”
Ravneet Phokela, Chief Business Officer, said, “After a successful launch in Bengaluru, we are expanding across the country starting with Chennai. The launch in Chennai is like a homecoming for Ather, as the organization was conceptualised at IIT Madras. We have already started receiving pre-order interest from enthusiasts on the website. As we enter this exciting market, we are looking at extending the same go-to-market strategy that we employed in Bengaluru, starting with accepting pre-orders, setting up of the charging infrastructure and the Experience Center, followed by the delivery of vehicles.”
It isn’t just the design and development of the scooter which Ather has worked upon, instead they have tried to address the common issue which drives many potential customer away from Electric Vehicles, the lack of supporting infrastructure for EVs. Ather has launched AtherGrid, under which it has started to install intelligent and connected charging stations across Bengaluru. The AtherGrid will be open to all EVs and not just the Ather scooters.
By smartly placing the charging stations at malls, cafes, restaurants, tech parks etc., Ather intends to provide a working charging station within 4 km driving distance from any point in the city. To woo users, the first six months usage at the AtherGrid charging points won’t be charged to the customers! This shall certainly help the cause as Bengaluru has relatively a higher acceptance of EVs in the 4 wheeler segment too and an improved charging infrastructure shall help both the 2 & 4 wheeler EV market.
Ather scooters don’t have any direct competition as it is venturing into an unchartered territory, still the closest competition in the segment will come from Okinawa Praise, priced at INR 59,899 (ex-showroom, Delhi) respectively. Ather S340 is priced at Rs 1.09 lakhs and 450 is priced at Rs 1.24 lakhs, ex-sh.
