I refer above announcement. What plans will have charging reimbursement?
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Seems like only ather one
Hi,
ursjai beat me to the answer 
. Ather One is the only plan with home charging reimbursement. Ather Charge plan is primarily to enable public charging.
So what about customers who don’t want any plan or those who wish to use their own sim or use wifi.
Ather scooter is expensive to begin with, now with the Ather plans it is even more expensive to own, then a petrol scooter.
Even for a die hard green enthusiast like me, I find the ownership cost expensive which is why I have still not booked them, not due to the initial cost but due to ather subscription plans.
For me none of the plans make sense since I will use solar.
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Thanks, referring below announcement
Can we expect any plan without Ather Connect? While it is too early to comment till I experience good aspects of Ather Connect, at this point of time it does not look any attractive to subscribe for ₹3000/-. For me, I do not need maps/navigation nor software updates so frequently. I also say remote diagnostics are not needed for a robust vehicle or at least not at the cost of vehicle owner.
On Ather Service, does it include spare parts too? If not, then I feel it is too expensive. I own a EV 2 wheeler (Chinese make) from last 2 years and I have not serviced even once. Only part I changed is brake shoe which costed me less than ₹100/- so far.
On Ather Charge, I do not need and there is none near my house nor in my route to office. I will do good home work before I start so that I have sufficient charge to return.
In total, I feel plans announced need to be re-worked to make it more pocket friendly and more options to pick what he want.
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Personally, these plans make a lot of sense for me. I need 100 rupees of fuel everyday. That alone comes for around 20k per year. Plus the service charge.
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When you give a honda scooter to service, most of the bill amount is pure loot. I stopped giving my scooter to service and I service it to according to service manual.
The point of EV scooter is the nil service required. The bearings should last more then 50000km, the shock seal should be good for similar or more kms. The drive belt in cvt geared scooter according to Honda should be replaced at 24000km. Disc brakes last quite a lot more then the drum brakes, the disk brake oil also is good for several thousand km or years.
The primary reason for engine powered vehicles to be given to service is to get their oil changed, air filter and clutch.No such thing is there in EV scooter.
My nearly 9 year old 40000km Honda aviator has not yet had any bearing changes or fork seal change, despite the pathetic roads of bangalore. It only needed a new drum brakes, a belt change and clutch change once. These days oil change is done for free in shell petrol bunk, provided you use their oil.
What ather is charging for their plans is very expensive, even compared to a greedy honda service centers. Remember the battery replacement cost is another addition.
It has to be the decision of the customer to choose if and when he or she wants to service their vehicle.
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Hey,
The Ather 450 or 340 was not made with a generic SIM card slot nor is it WIFI enabled - so it is difficult to use your own sim or wifi. With respected to why connected service is compulsory part of it, connectivity is an integral part of “Intelligent Electric” experience that we had designed for the 450 and 340. Without it, a range of features gets disabled which significantly compromise the offering.
I hope that clarifies.
Thanks
Gandharv
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Hi Gandharv,
Can you please be more specific about the features which require connectivity? It will be great for me in terms of privacy and as to well understand what Ather is planning in the near future.
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What exactly are those Intelligent Electric experience features that get effected.
Still the connectivity prices are expensive compared to today cellular data charges. Basically you want 300 bucks a month for a navigation and for collecting user data, plus the cost of charging it. Rip OFF.
Hi,
Absolutely. At the time of riding, navigation itself is dependent on connectivity. Additionally, connectivity enables you to plan your ride while at home, and push navigation to the vehicle from the comfort of your house/ office. You can also track the current charging status of your vehicle from you app - you could do this from your house or when you are in a public CI location (e.g. a mall). Additionally, you can track your ride history from your app as well - you can navigate to locations you have been to etc. You would also be able to check out your vehicle’s diagnostics from your app - if there is anything wrong with the vehicle, you would know that on your app well before it becomes a serious issue (hopefully!).
Finally, software is integral to functioning of the vehicle. Right from torque delivery to battery management to internal health management of vehicle to functionality of dashboard, all of it is controlled by software. As we work on improving functionality of the vehicle through software, Over the air updates would help us ensure your vehicle is current without having to wait for you to visit a service center. OTA also ensures that you dont miss out on any improvements on the vehicles as we learn more.
Sorry - that was a bit of a long answer. But I hope that clarifies this.
Thanks
Gandharv
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Thanks for answering my question. It makes sense now.
I thought software development costs were rolled in the price of the vehicle. You are getting valuable real-world data for free while making the customer pay 3K for AtherConnect, I thought, you would go all out and incentivise people. Agree that OTA updates are valuable to the consumer but the cost of developing and distributing software does not scale with number of consumers( just the SIM charges ) so this is just a poorly disguised way to increase revenue. I understand you need to get to unit-level profitability soon, but this is probably a bad call.
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Somehow I do NOT agree with this philosophy. Nothing should be enforced, User should have absolute control over what he wants. As of now, Ather Connect is enforced.
I do not want navigation. I do not want to be glued on to my mobile phone to check this-that. I would do the better math of battery before I venture out. Ride History - does it give me any added value if I am travelling on the same road 300+ days? For sure the privacy of user should be respected and I do not want to disable every 24 hours to privacy mode (user should be able to select his own default)
Diagnostics and vehicle management should be part of vehicle pricing and NOT at the cost of the customer. To my knowledge, most EV companies (e2o, Tesla) give this diagnostics statistics as standard and not charged extra for any software upgrades too.
To summarize, Ather should seriously consider to make the vehicle affordable and cheap to maintain. As of now, I am sorry to say both are not.
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Diagnostics must be part of vehicle cost than subscription. It appears Ather is looking at recurring business than helping customers. Once vehicle is delivered everything should be in control with customers in terms of deciding to use the mobile services or not. Electric vehicles purpose today is constrained to city and daily commuters use mostly one or 3 routes at max to reach office most of the times.
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This is my WISH plan 
Ather Diagnostics - Free (only diagnostics/warning/suggestion)
Ather Navigation - ₹ 1500/- (purely navigation plan)
Ather Charge - ₹4000/- (Ather Grid, as announced)
Ather Service - ₹4000/- (As announced)
Ather ONE - ₹8400/- (as announced)
Any 2 items that are bundled together should have a discount.
Any Software updates/upgrades should be free during the warranty period. After the warranty period, it can be chargeable (Or whoever in ‘Ather Service’ plan gets this free)
An option should be given to the user for updates/upgrade, either over the air or by visiting the service centre (or downloadable through the computer and updated through USB dongle).
Will it come true? 
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Diagonastics doesn’t need any connectivity, there are only a couple of sensors in ather scooter battery state of charge, volt, current, temperature sensors, back emf or hall effect sensor for motor,which are the most basic info and sensors needed for functioning of any ev vehicle.
You only beed data connection if you want see the state of charge or charge related parameters or tracking vehicle movement remotely.
But if the plans prices are revised like above, then its reasonable.
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I agree. This gives flexibility.
I am really surprised (in a positive way). People (potential customers) here are analyzing everything in detail. In how many ways Ather team members try to justify (camouflage) their costs or strategy people are clever enough to understand it.
First of all Ather really did good at solving few EV problems.
- Looks
- Performance
- Reliability
But they have miserably failed at solving other important problems
- Range
- Selling price of a unit.
Also they brought more problems in EV
- Unnecessary features in a scooter - Features are good but not really make sense for 60KM+ range scooter
- Continuous maintenance cost in terms of subscription plans. EVs supposed to be maintenance free owing to Battery replacement cost. Ather says battery needs to be replaced after 50000 KM. even if it costs 25000 INR after 5 years we are still paying 5000 INR per year towards maintenance which is comparable to any ICE scooter . So only advantage left to encourage to shift to Ather EV is less fuel cost. But when we are forced to take up at least connected services then this advantage vanishes. Remember all this is after you pay ~65000 INR extra.
Final words.
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Ather is a scooter company and you should concentrate more on solving mobility problems like range. It is good to have IT enabled features but not at the exorbitant cost. Incidentally Indians are tech savvy and they can understand real software costs very well. Better you make all the connected service costs, OTA update costs part of the product price. Absolutely zero maintenance cost.
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This is very important - why you are expecting a customer to pay for the betterment of your future products?
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If you have figured it out cost is the biggest problem. What is stopping you from mass production and reduce the cost? Ather Grid? why we need Grid? Low range? then solve this first…
We can reduce the dependency on the charging station to less than 5 % if we really have a good range (~100 km per charge in power mode) -
You are spending more resources on features but that doesn’t give you more orders unless you solve range and cost. But as soon as you solve these two and get large orders the existing big players take it to the next level. I believe Honda, Bajaj, Hero, TVS, Suzuki, Yamaha are already having better EV products than you but they are waiting for the demand to grow for mass production. By the time they enter your features may help you get the customers but these features should come at a cost of ~ 10000 INR to 15000 INR extra unlike 60000 INR.
P.S. I have booked my Ather 450 and waiting for it.
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