Discussions and updates on existing and upcoming AtherGrid locations can be done here.
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Bescom Bangalore has set up few charging stations in the city and have plans to do 83 stations soon. Will this be compatible with Ather? If yes would they show up on the map in the dashboard
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In the FAQ section for Grid under the section Non-Ather EVs. It says that the host could deny service.
This can be a huge problem for the owners. To give you an example I recently planned to attend a wedding at Hebbal from where I stay at the south end of Bangalore. This needed me to charge the vehicle in between because the range wasn’t enough to carry 2 of us both ways. Luckily I found an ather grid point less than a km from the wedding hall. So we decided to leave it for charging there for an hour during which we’ll attend the wedding and get my scooter charged meanwhile.
Now I didn’t plan to use any of the host’s services which didn’t go well with the host. When I got back after 2 hours, my scooter charge had barely increased by a percent (as the host had switched off the charger) and I was indirectly forced to avail their services for an additional hour when I requested them to switch it on and got my scooter charged for an hour.
I think the key thing here was the host’s right to deny charging because I didn’t avail their services. This takes away a huge advantage (which we are led to assume from ather grid) for people who plan to charge while finishing off some other task.
Most of us will use our home charging stations regularly and once in while (read once in a couple of months or 4 -5 times in a year) we use the ather grid which was already of little benefit. And when hosts can deny services, ather grid is practically useless as nothing can be planned assuming it’s availability.
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This is an eye opener. So public parking places should also be made available with chargers with the help of governing bodies.
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You are Ather owner, how they can deny charging based on above FAQ. It can be applied to non Ather EV’s. So host turned off charging for Ather vehicle means
- Ather grid is not usable because of below reasons.
- we may need to pay more than petrol price to charge the scooter ( Host services + electricity charge )
- Spending more time to get scooter charged ( in your case wedding 2 hours + 1 hour extra for charging, while availing host service )
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this is making me think 10 times before i buy ather.
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This is a concern that needs to be addressed, how can we be assured that this does not happen to future owners. Switching off the the charger is unacceptable. How can the host do this for the services that are promised to be delivered.
Please do let us know as to how the hosts are governed to ensure seemless services are available to Ather Owners, Ather Owners should always have easy access to these services.
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Hey Guys,
We did the root cause analysis of the problem that @vishwacs111 faced while trying to charge at AtherGrid location.
Based on our investigation there are a few things we learned:
- The vehicle charging started, and abruptly stoped because of a temperature sensor giving the wrong reading for a brief duration.
- Ideally in a case like this, the charging should resume as soon as the reading is normalised. However, due to a firmware glich, the charging did not resume.
- When the charging station was manually restarted by the host on request, the charging resumed.
Take-aways:
- The charging stations need a firmware update to make sure that it restarts charging as soon as the error is rectified.
- This is a corner case, that hadn’t turned up during our testing, hence the fix for it hadn’t been available. Now that we are aware of this, the firmware fix is already being worked on and will be pushed via OTA updates to all AtherGrid locations.
A request to all users of AtherGrid, Ather Owners, as well as non-Ather EV owners, in case there is any issue while using AtheGrid, request you to reach out to us using customer service line. The system has scope for improvement and if we can figure out the problem, we can device a solution for it much quickly.
Regards,
Shreyas
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I think my post needs a bit of a clarification. I’m not claiming that the the Ather grid point host actively tried to disallow me from using the point. In fact he was mostly courteous. And to be honest I had forgotten about the whole incident myself.
My concern was in the Non Ather EVs section of the FAQs which gave the host the right to deny service.
Turns out this policy was only for Non-Ather EVs. Atleast Ather owners can comfortably rely on the Ather grid while planning their travels. Thanks to the Ather team for getting to the bottom of this and clarifying the policy promptly.
@venkataraghavan.t @anish.ts @kushalkumar. Apologies for raising a false alarm. This was mostly a one-off case which was exasperated by miscommunication.
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Its better you change the original post. or scratch the part out where you said the host denied you.
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Hope this will not be a real issue in future.
Ather grid host switch off the unit.
Expecting owners to use their services in return.
Ather team should also ensure that in their contract the host will not harass the customers to take their services to get the bikes charged.
I know the above post is based on misunderstanding but in future this can happen.
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Hi Shreyas and the Ather team,
Are there any plans to open AtherGrid charging points at the Kempegowda Airport? I travel out of the city and into the city quite often, and I was wondering if I could use the Ather 450 to commute to and from the airport. My current one-way commute distance to the Airport is around 48 kms.
Best regards,
Sisir
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Ather Grid at airport will also serve as good publicity for Ather.
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We could have it in Yelahanka area. This will help the airport travelers and the north Bangalore area also
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BIAL is definately in our plans. We’ll update here when something materialises.
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Ather has plan to install Ather Grid charging point in IT tech parks ?
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There will many companies in one IT tech parks where daily EV commuter from different company can use their bikes to charge in their work location.
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In facts, IT companies are encouraging the use of Electric Vehicles as i can see there is reserved socket plugs in the company to charge electric cars in parking areas.
If there is not such plans, then i can buy portable charger to use ather in work location. 
Just thought to Ather team to ask if they such plans.
Just asking: can you convert my future charge point to gather grid( small time thinking against climate change)
Strange to see BIAL pref/reactions over places like ITPL tech parks…
CCDs must follow in line.
I was shocked to read your expected price point for non Ather vehicle in future - Rs. 30 to 40 for 30 minutes charge at Ather grid??? Are you serious on promoting EV? What justifies this price point?
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@ather_rajs.in - no in line response to denial factor from host…
EV mode with this structure end up making us spend 200 -300 for every stop?
Government not giving you guys any benefit? (I doubt)