It was January 24th, 2023, I received my Ather 450X in white color. I was following Ather since it was a fairly new startup back in 2018 and was stoked to have Ather as my first vehicle, let alone first electric vehicle since I stepped into adulthood.
Before I begin with the review of the vehicle itself, lemme give you my experience at Ather Space - Janakpuri (now closed). The team at this Space was extremely professional (all puns intended). The entire time I was at the Space, they barely gave me any insight about the specs of the vehicle, I am pretty sure that they did not know I was an enthusiast and even if they did, they should have at least given me some info about the vehicle, but they just let me look around and see how the different colors looked like. Moreover, I was willing to get a dot charger, however for some reason, I was pushed to getting a portable charger which I regret getting till date.
Next, Mr. Piyush, one of the representatives, who did the paperwork for the loan process, told me that the first EMI due would be around 13th March, however it was foolish of me to take that in writing since my first due was on March 3rd and I was penalized for this not only with the fees but also my credit score.
Coming back to the delivery, it wasn’t much of a hassle since I live only 500 meters away from this showroom, but I was disappointed to get a half size helmet with the scooter, I was expecting a full size since this half size helmet barely helps with any dust or wind and almost is like wearing a helmet with no windshield at all.
Charging was not much of a hassle since I could just charge at the grid in front of the showroom as my neighborhood has very narrow roads to be able to plug in a portable charger. My misery with Ather didn’t seem to end though, every time I used to plug in my vehicle, and leave my keys with the showroom, they used to pull out my vehicle at 80% (this was before optimized charging was made mandatory), I raised a complaint at Ather but it did not seem to affect their attitude in any way. In fact, I wanted when I asked them why they did so, they answered that they had to serve other customers as well and “hamare yaha aisa hi hota h”. I was shocked, but not surprised. I asked them to give me this policy in writing, and they declined that as well. Only within 3 months, this showroom was permanently closed without any prior notice of any sort. Maybe they are not obliged to informing the customers about such happening, but I do expect some for of disclousure since I was almost completely dependent on the public charger for my daily drive, and the 2nd nearest public charger is almost 8 kms away. As of today, the public charger at the closed Ather space is on maintenance or temporarily closed almost half the time during charging hours.
Now I somehow am charging my vehicle by spending another Rs. 3000 and getting a safety box for the portable charger to be able to charge it in front of my house.
It’s time for the daily driving issues. Up until end of March 2023, auto hold did not work at all despite having the stack 5.0 update, the navigation arrow was bugged, and I almost missed my exam twice because of this specific bug since the arrow did not point in the right direction and I always used to miss turns. Following up the patch, the arrow till date is unusable as the map itself is the laggiest I have ever seen on any device. I could barely use the touch screen on the google maps as the response is 1 frame every 2-3 seconds. Moreover, while driving, it’s a nightmare, the arrow or location pointer barely every update in real time, it will always update after I have crossed 200-500 meters and already missed the turn. Talk about the lag itself during navigation, completely useless “World’s* only scooter with Google Maps”. This was improved in 5.5 stack, however the map is still very laggy and I need to mount my phone to use GPS instead of using the in built navigation because of how annoying it is to stop at every turn and wait for the navigation pointer to align with my live location.
Here is a video showcasing the severity of the issue:
Now, some things that are my fault that I should have noted and compared with other scooters:
- No space in front. The “Frunk” that you get is a separate Rs. 3000/- accessory that needs to be purchased after the vehicle itself.
- No usb port or mobile holder, I can barely put my phone anywhere while driving. I am forced to put my phone in my pocket or mount it.
- No speakers (not that important) but cool to have on other scooter such as Ola S1
- Laggiest map out of all vehicles.
- No dedicated reverse gear button, I need to press a series of buttons and takes almost 1-2 to go in reverse mode. This is crucial since taking 2-3 seconds while making a turn or taking vehicle out on a busy road can lead to a serious traffic jam.
All of these problems costed me a fantastic price of Rs. 1.8 Lakhs. And the funniest part is only 4 months after I purchased my scooter, I get the news that the price is going down by almost 20-30% because there is a pre packed charger and new base variant at cheaper cost.
I was hoping to get an Ather for my mum, but not anymore, at least not for now.
I would not deny that riding the 450X is a lot of fun, but I am sure that riding an electric scooter is fun in itself and I could have gotten this fun from any other electric scooter under 1 Lakh? Though I love the white color and design of Ather 450x, I cannot recommend this vehicle to anyone in the right state of my mind at this moment in time.