Subsequent pre-orders had changes in the terms of lease from Autovert. Please check what your lease agreement says about service & connectivity or verbiage relating to extension of plans through your lease period.
The important thing here is that the lease is between Autovert and the owner. Ather will have no control over what the terms of the lease agreement may be. Ather’s involvement is restricted to servicing your vehicle, invoicing Autovert for the cost or service and then realise payment for that invoice.
Sorry @raghav.srinivasan, I dont have the copy of the agreement with me right now so wont be able to post it. But I have got a similar FAQ which is already posted in the thread, where in the “What is included section” mention that all connectivity will be provided for the entire duration.
I had booked the bike on June 2019 and surprisingly got it delivered in July 2019. I had made the lease downpayment in July 2019. I hope there is no changes in agreements from person to person.
Not person to person, rather changes were done over time. The early set of users got the Ather One plan (today called the 360 plan) for the entire duration of the lease. Subsequently when Ather changed the complimentary subscription to Ather Service, I remember Autovert also changing that in their terms. I also remember a “Autovert Service” plan (not an official Ather plan) that was very similar to the Ather Service plan but had some additional terms.
So it matters what plan was included in your signed lease contract.
I agree, it was Ather One subscription that was a part of the lease but it was changed to Ather Service subscription and it is included in the rental that I pay.
It is such an apathy getting stuck between the devil and the ghost!
The reason why I’m holding Ather accountable is because these details were clearly mentioned on their website and now they can’t back out!
When my cousin was thinking on purchasing Ather 450, I sent few news articles and some snapshots from the forum… to help him decide…
Some of the articles:
If you see, the calculations from Outlook have mentioned that Ather Service is included for free for entire lease term.
A news article cannot be considered as source of truth… But, somewhere a mis-communication or lack of communication from Autovert caused this.
Also, as @raghav.srinivasan mentioned, lease terms are owned by Autovert. So, it is better to read thru and be aware of the benefits / terms before you sign up.
At the end of the day, I would say, it is the responsibility of lessee to look into the agreement thoroughly to ensure that it meets his expectations. If not happy with the lease cancel it or if what they are asking is reasonable makes sense to pay under the terms continue it.
It is clearly stated what is included as a part of lease agreement and because Autovert and Ather couldn’t come to a consensus customers are getting penalised.
In the agreement it says, the lessee will get Autovert Plug Plan for the entire duration of the lease and Autovert clarifies what Autovert Plug Plan is through FAQ document.
Looks like they are adding the Ather Connect plan back again. Autovert initially told me that the FAQ document was incorrect, and that the lease document doesn’t mention about the Ather Connect plan (I don’t know if I have the lease document with me, have to check).
During my 1st year, I had paid the additional amount to upgrade to Ather One plan, so I was thinking that it would revert back to the Ather Connect plan, at the end of the year. But Autovert told me that there would be no subscription plan once the 1 year expires and that I have to pay the subscription fee to Ather separately. After arguing for a bit, I gave up and decided not to opt for any plan.
So at the end of July, my subscription plan expired and I was no longer able to connect to my scooter. I didn’t care because I haven’t taken it out even once since then .
But today, I got an email from Autovert asking me to check if the Connect plan is active on my scooter. I checked, and it looks like the plan is active again, so hopefully, it gets fixed for others as well.
But I am not at all happy with this situation and I feel both Ather and Autovert are responsible for this. It is certainly not a good look, and has really turned me off from both the brands.
My app got activated as well. This much they should have done at the first instance instead of pointing out T&C in lease agreement. Their FAQ was very concise, that I think nobody would have taken the trouble to read through lease agreement.
When Ather itself is promoting Autovert in their site so prominently, they cannot just shift all the blame to Autovert, they should have at least taken a lead to sort out the issue.
Before COVID I was persuading couple of my colleagues to go electric and consider Ather, but I am having second thoughts. Anyways any purchase is few months away so lets wait and see.
Finally got email confirmation from Autovert that Ather Connect service is covered for the entire duration of the lease along with general service of the vehicle (every 5k).
Now the battle is for Ather to provide an option for lease customers to upgrade the plan.
When I call up the customer care and ask, they say we have to pay what is mentioned on the website. That doesn’t make any sense because we are already paying for Ather Connect and vehicle service.
I am hoping @abhishek.balaji will come back with a solution for this.
Hey @abhishek.balaji
My Ather plan is due for renewal in a week. I’ve not been using my scooter since March, and I don’t think I need even the basic connect services for the coming quarter. Is it possible for me to skip this quarter without any subscription plan and go with Ather Service next quarter with the price at that time, without any issue ?
I ask this because, with the 450X Ather seems to be offering the choice of pausing or skipping your monthly subscription for a month.
As far as I understand, there is no harm in not opting for a subscription plan. Also, it makes total sense for you to not opt considering the latest developments (unfavorable) from Vodafone Idea.
You will be able to use the vehicle as usual but you won’t have access to connectivity services so much so the Ather app will be of no use.
In case you are a lease customer, then the story is different and you can read some of the above posts to get an idea.
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