A ride till 0%

Hi All, this is my 6th ride blog on the forum. Ride done on October 1st 2022.

This is the first time I’m riding till 0%. Quite a few factors led to consuming the full battery, will add the details below.

Overnight charged it to 100%, and turned off charger before sleeping. Did not shutdown the scooter, so battery dropped off to 98%, 2% is normal so I was ok with that.

I had some work to do at Kadavanthara, Kochi. With direct route it was 36km away from home. The high traffic through NH544 made me take a detour via International Container terminal road (NH966A).

Start dashboard:

Started from home by 9.32AM with 98% battery as shown above. Traffic was relatively high since it was a busy Saturday morning.

After Aluva, took the detour to container terminal road, which had less traffic as I hoped. This helped me maintain a constant speed from 45-50km/h in Sports Mode. I never changed modes during the entire ride, because I knew I can stretch the range to the maximum with sports mode alone.

From the empty container terminal road, went via Goshree Bridge to Marine Drive, and on the way checked the tyre pressure which was down by 1PSI.

At Tyre PSI check :

After the top-up, reached Kadavanthara via Sahodaran Ayyappan Road by 11.02AM, and parked right under a tree.

Dashboard after reaching Kadavanthara :

Ride Stat 1 :

Got a pretty good efficiency of 24.2Wh/km with sports mode and constant speed of 45-50km/h

Started with 98% Battery

Distance Traveled: 40.5km

Avg Efficiency: 24.2Wh/km

Energy used : 980.1Wh or 37.55%

Current Battery at 60%

After the work, came back by 11.29AM. Decided to go to the Kochi EC because I noticed a small noise at brake discs even when brakes were not applied. And in the 27 mins, battery dropped 1% from 60% to 59%.

Start of the 2nd leg dashboard :

On the way from Kadavanthara to Vytilla , because of traffic restrictions, had to go the long way round and reached Ather Kochi EC at Ponnurunni, Vytilla by 11.51AM. Still maintaining a good efficiency, bringing down the total efficiency to 24.1Wh/km.

Reached EC Dashboard

Ride Stat 2 :

After Kadavanthara

Started with 59%

Distance Traveled: 7.6km

Avg Efficiency: 24.1Wh/km

Energy Used : 183.16Wh or 7.01%

Current Battery : 51%

At Ather Kochi EC, explained the issue I faced with the service technician and she confirmed it by riding it herself. It is most probably dust being stuck between Brake Pad and Brake disc, the friction between them making the sound. The service technician said she’ll check the brake pads and clean them, since I had changed it on the 2nd service, and odometer now was only 11137km, no need to change the pads again.

Ride stat by service technician :

Because other vehicles were already using the 2 service bays, had to wait for it to be free.

Met @nadeemlthf and @narayanankks82 at the EC and they were attaching and testing a new Mud guard designed by another Ather Owner Aji to reduce mud splash on the pillion and rear of the Scooter with the stock mud guard which doesn’t offer enough protection.

I rode pillion with the mudguard attached, and was impressed with it, it didn’t touch even with pillion and on potholes, the mudguard is silent and is very stylish looking, fits with Ather design language well and also very functional since it covers the Belt region as well.

Here are some pics of the custom mudguard designed by Aji, a Gen 2 Ather 450X owner :

Thier experience shared in YouTube video :

They both proceeded to test the mudguard more by traveling 30km to Aji’s home. I bid them adieu and went to have lunch at a nearby restaurant.

By the time I was back, vehicle was also almost done with the Brake Pad cleanup and I appreciate the service technician doing it fast and she also added WD40 to reduce the friction and have a smooth brake operation.

I started from EC back to home by 2.17PM.

After the cleanup the signature Wheeee sound came back and I really like this about Ather. Very satisfied with the service done on the scooter and swift resolution of the same. My only suggestion to Ather for improvement is to add more service Bays and service hubs at Kochi, which can reduce the waiting period to get the service.

Return journey start dashboard :

Current Battery at 49%.

Again due to traffic diversions at Vytilla Junction, I had to travel more distance than I intended to, returning via Kadavanthara, Marine drive and Container Terminal back to NH544. Chose this route to reduce the traffic interruption and peaceful riding.

Took a small break at Marine drive, to get some solace from the afternoon sun beating down on me.

Kochi EC to Marine Drive:

Started with 49%

Distance Traveled : 9.6km

Avg Efficiency : 24Wh/km

Energy used : 230.4 Wh or 8.83%

Current Battery at 39%

Weirdly though the ride from EC to this stop wasn’t shown up in the ride stat sven though had network shown well in the dashboard, which is very unusual for me. Dropkick version 10.4.0-202230 is dropping ride stats inconsistently. Sometimes the software acts like it wants and doesn’t sync up well, many can vouch for these issues.

After the break, didn’t stop again and continued on the route. Till I joined back to NH544, the traffic was much less, again maintaing a constant 40km/h.

Joining back to NH544, there was huge traffic and at each signal, there were more vehicles in crawling speed that I couldn’t maintain good efficiency throughout. My theory is that in slow speed, more battery is consumed (0-20km/h) to keep the momentum up. Stop start traffic is too hectic to mind as well as the vehicle.

In small regions where traffic sped up, I maintained 25km/h to make sure to reach my home safely but later again the blocks prevented me from extending the range too much.

I noticed that I completed 85km with around 9% remaining but 11km was still to go. Could go only very slowly because of both the traffic and low battery :battery: (not that power is limited, just didn’t want to consume more)

Slowly but surely the battery percentage kept dropping, and now I was sure I’d stop soon.

Finally after reaching 0% , it still went some 100m again and motor turned off.

Final Dashboard at 0% motor off :

Ride Stat till 0% :

Final Leg :

Started with 39%

Distance Traveled : 37km

Avg Efficiency : 23.4Wh/km

Energy Used : 865.8Wh or 33.17%

Looking at the trip meter, was kind of surprised that I crossed 95.1km till the battery was completely consumed. Sadly though still had 2km to go, with no other option than to push. Small downhill sections definitely helped but it was exhausting to push. Only when pushing without the help of motor you understand the vehicle is heavy at 108kg, it never feels so when riding, thanks to low Centre of Gravity.

Thanks to few fellow motorists and one Ather owner who helped push for small distance and asked my brother to help as well. Thankfully it wasn’t the middle of the road when the motor tuned off.

Combined Stats :

Started with 98%

Distance Traveled : 95.1km

Average Efficiency : 23.4Wh/km

Energy Used : 2225.34Wh or 85.26%

Ended with 0% Battery.

There is loss of energy due to headlight, indicators, horn, Bluetooth, fan running for dashboard and motor and network usage. All of this adds up to 13% , don’t know if it’s high or normal usage.

The factors that led to ending the ride at 0% :

  • Stop and go traffic

  • Very hot sunny day, consuming more battery due to temperature and fan running.

  • Not charged at EC because there were too many vehicles to charge at grid.

  • No grids from Aluva to Angamaly route.

  • Re-routing to get ahead of traffic.

Although this situation is dire, reaching 0% myself actually made me realise the consistency of Ather 450X and how much the riding style affects the range. Ather had promised 85km TrueRange with 100% but I travelled 95.1km with 98% only.

Although trip meter shows less percentage used, the dashboard and lights all consume a bit more energy. So consider a buffer of 5-10% for efficiency over riding. Maybe this could have been avoided by taking the shorter route but the traffic was a nightmare.

After reaching home, charged with portable charger at 5.11PM

100% reached at 9.56PM

Time Taken to charge from 0% to 100% : 4h 45m

Hope you all liked this blog, and please add any feedback and thoughts.

Previous blogs :

Ather Kochi Independence Day Ride

Saturday Ride meeting Atherites

A Rainy day ride to Kochi

Ride to Thrissur EC

Ather Kochi anniversary Ride

13 Likes

All dashboard pics :

All Ride Stats :

One ride stat is missing between Ather Kochi EC and Marine Drive

3 Likes

Another point to note is

Distance covered in first 50% (98%-51% ) is 48.1km

Distance covered in last 50% (51% - 0%) is 47km.

So as expected, lower the percentage, slightly lower range.

1 Like

First 50% range we cant expect in last 50%. SOC below 30% will drop down faster.

2 Likes

Ather custom mudguard video in English

4 Likes