Hi…
I am really happy to say that we are having excellent time with this bike in terms of performance. Ride experience is awesome with ride and mainly with sports mode. I want to share our experience on this model.
Ordering: Process for ordering is fine with some minor concerns. One glitz what we observed is adhering to commitments. It is expected that once a thing was promised or committed over mail, it has to be implemented. Two or three deviations happened in our case which cause so much inconvenience to us. This should be avoided. But customer care executives are very well trained to manage the things and they will try their best to address our concerns afterwards. While ordering, in first page we need to enter our details and need to perform uploading of required documents. In the next page, there are multiple payment options available for paying the final amount.
Please make a note that if we pay through Credit card/Debit card or Internet banking, around 2% of the whole amount (approximately Rs 2000 /-) will be levied as processing fee. Best way is payment through NEFT mode. Details of the account to be added as beneficiary is available in this page only. But it will take some significant time to activate the beneficiary (Ather in this case) as per the banks norm. Typically SBI will take 4 hours of time. So our process will be interrupted at this point. So we are forced to shutdown our computer and after the bank activation only we continued the process once again. So it is better to add ‘Ather’ as beneficiary before itself. @Ather admin: Kindly provide the beneficiary account details to customers at the time of booking only so that we will be ready with these proceedings.
Battery Performance: We got really confused when we observed the range for the first time. First charge of the bike gave us only 32 Kms range and second charge gave us only 37 Kms even in eco mode. Later it was observed that if scooter wasn’t in shutdown mode and is active, then around 5 to 8 % battery drop is happening per day even if we are not using the bike. So in a week we are loosing around 40-50% of the charge and this is the reason for this low range. Later we tried for a long ride and it was observed that around 60 Kms per range is possible in ride mode on a flat road. Also single and double riding as well as road gradients matters alot for the battery consumption. In a steep gradient, we observed a battery drop of 3% per kilometer. If the scooter is in shutdown mode, then around 1% drop only is observed in 3 days of time. So it is recommended to shutdown if we are not using the scooter. For full charging of the battery, approximately 2.8 - 3 KWH (Units) consumption is observed.
Sound: One and only major concern is the sound while riding. As an electric scooter, it is expected a silent ride with the bike but it is completely different with this bike. With accelerator, the sound will persist always and it is very much annoying some times. I started using ear cotton buds for longer rides. Requesting ather to look into this.
Touch Screen: I feel sensitivity of the touch screen should be improved as the response is very sluggish. Some times we need to click 4-5 times for accessing the menus. Also navigation feature to be improved for auto re-routing options.
Charger Installation: The type of provision available for cable duct laying and clamping is very good. As long as we are doing the installation for an individual house, it is fine. But for apartments (like what we faced), please think before installation itself. As only pillars are available at the basement, it is not at all recommended to install/drill anything on pillars which will effect the building strength in longer duration. Either we need to provide an alternate frame for fixing the charger or we need to consult a structural engineer to identify the correct position to be drilled on the pillar. Around 9 holes including 4 large holes with 2 inches depth are drilled in our case. Also requesting ather to identify alternate provisions for charger installations in apartment complexes as normal way will not workout in future.
I am writing this review only for highlighting the concerns. But as everyone is mentioning, performance wise full satisfaction is guaranteed. Except sound, we having a cruising experience with this bike.
Srinivas
