Checked on this with the team and unfortunately this won’t be possible. The component parts such as the battery pack, motor and control circuit have been approved by the relevant authorities for use by Ather only to manufacture electric scooters.
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Some good hope for ev owners.
The Next Web: There’s no need to worry about your EV battery degrading over time.
Hi ,
It would be awesome if you can provide battery health report on monthly basis. Just curious about battery’s performance?
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What is voltage of battery pack and ah?
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@abhishek.balaji, any updates on this issue? During the owners meet conducted on 17-Sep-2020, we were told that you will soon publish the VINs of vehicles affected by the BMS bug. I guess we haven’t heard from you after that.
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Abhishek, just a thought: Would it be possible to link the post explaining how to locate the VIN to this FAQ? I am anticipating that will be the next obvious question whenever someone reads this 
Thanks for the suggestion! I’ve added a link to find your VIN. Where do I see VIN (Vehicle identification number) of my 450?
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Sad to hear this and I am one of the victim who falls below this VIN cut off number.
- Shutdown mode was 'Shutdown’ when 450 was released. It was renamed as ‘vacation’ mode later to cover the issue.
- Battery loss is really heavy , say around 5 to 7% a day. If we are unable to shutdown at higher SoC, then it is very inconvenient. On other day, I had to go to a place unexpectedly and I did not have enough charge to return due to low charge. COVID time has made us to have 'vacation ’ mode very often.
- Thanks for covering the issue in warranty period. However what is there beyond 3 years? It is really worrying.
So, is it a mistake to own 450 as early bird? I am wondering
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Good that Ather has finally found a solution! covering it under warranty is good but Ather should actually issue a recall and make the necessary updates. 2973 vehicles (of which many would be company owned) isn’t a huge number after all for an issue as big as this.
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Hey so, if it’s not covered after 3 yrs, is it something we have to be worried about throughout its life ? Am I better off inducing it to happen now within warranty and get it sorted out and not worry about it ?
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You can still shutdown, just avoid doing it on a daily basis. Occasional shutdown when you’re not using it won’t be a problem.
We did test this scenario extensively, and the probability of this occurring is really low. As long as you follow our recommendation on using it as a vacation more, it would not occur.
It involves opening up the battery pack and modifying the BMS, which is a very time and labor-intensive process. Also, give that this is a very rare occurrence, we’ll fix it under warranty if it occurs. Do follow the recommendation of using it occasionally when not using it for extended periods of time, and the issue shouldn’t occur.
Answered above. Do follow the recommendation of using shutdown when you won’t be using the vehicle for an extended period of time, and it won’t cause any issues.
Problem is I use my scooter for a short run once a day due to covid and use it again next day same time and I’ve lost 5-7% already and if I leave it for 2 days almost 15% I never shut down now, because of that fear and in that process I’m losing range on my scooter. Nowdays on a full charge I put it back to charge with 25-30Km from the last ODO and 12-15Km range left. Effectively 40-45Km range. Which could be prevented by shutting down this also makes my scooter go through more charge cycles. Isn’t that something to consider too ?
Now that’s the thing right. After 3 yrs the probability is low but, it can happen. For example imagine after 3yrs of ownership, I decide to sell my scooter. I need to pass this on to the next owner as a defect in the battery and to follow the recommendation if he doesn’t want his battery to give way. That takes away from the value of my scooter at the time. I hope you understand how it looks. 
From an owner’s perspective and more so from a seller’s perspective, Isn’t just inducing it within warranty and getting all the time and labor intensive job on the battery pack done for free, better than having to worry about all the time? 
Idk if I’m the only one who’s thinking like this. I wouldn’t trigger it, ( cuz I’ll use it till it goes through a battery change to become better than it was when I bought it with more range) but can’t help but think about it and if I can, I think more people would think of it that way.
(Or maybe not) anyone else on the forum look at it like this?
- Yes, That is something to consider.
- No, following their recommendation is enough
- Idk what is this BMS issue
- I own the newer scooter
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voters
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Actually - every time I speak about this, I feel as much angry (for Ather not resolving it) and guilty (for wasting the energy instead of consuming)
Last year during Owners meetup - it was mentioned that once a solution is found, it will be fixed for all. Few months later, when a solution was found - the stance changed to - fix will be done when it occurs.
Subsequently, shutdown mode renamed to vacation mode.
Even when I followed up on this and even asked explicitly if the stance has been changed from fix for all → fix on demand, there was no direct answer till now.
It could be a rare occurrence but it does not give one confidence to use it. I was using shutdown literally every single day. But, since the problem was known, I have used it only 2-3 times.
During covid, the idle drain is 10x more than usage drain. But, I still don’t use it and I keep charging it every few days. I have only one scooter for my commute. And, even if there was 1% chance of this happening, I would not want to take risk by shutting it down and be without a vehicle for few days. Since Covid, my family has been ultra cautious - Cab / Auto will be the last thing I will take.
After 3 years, when Ather might have delivered 50k-100k vehicles, these 3k vehicles are just a small number - could very well have been fixed. We are not asking to fix immediately. Do it in a phased manner and align it with 4G upgrade / 5k service / 10k service…
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Sorry to say this @abhishek.balaji but the initial users were only following the guidelines given by Ather in the user manual.
The manual doesn’t say how frequent is too frequent. It just says that it is advisable to shut down the scooter when not in use for more that 5 days. And the most important point is that it says that we have to shutdown at a battery percentage above 60% (page 49 of the manual)
Whatever it was designed for, it was not communicated. And the issue came up even though the users were just following the guidelines. I’m really disappointed today with the communication today…you’ve made it appear as though it was the owners’ mistake and you are still solving it under warranty as a goodwill gesture.
There is a known issue and you supposedly have a solution today. In such a case, you’ve to troubleshoot in the affected scooters…however time intensive, however labour intensive it may be!
As @prasathvishnu told, it need not be immediate, but it has to be done.
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Battery warranty should be 8 years just like for electric cars. There are too many unknowns with battery technology and BMS hardware and software as these are still early days. Also, degradation after 3 years is not covered which is a big negative. 3 years is too low for a vehicle whether it’s 2 wheeler or 4 wheeler.
Hope the govt mandates the battery warranty for at least 6 years if not 8 years.
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Over the period of days after this Shutdown Announcement, idle battery drain is eating my brain. Main reason is that energy is simply being wasted when we DO NOT shutdown. Being Green man is most walks of my life I am genuinely concerned.
Considering one does not shutdown his vehicle, I tried to analyze this scenario with some assumption. In below calculation, only ‘idle’ scenario is considered as it is a pain point.
In above graph, 450 is charged to 100% SoC. If the vehicle is not used or even if it is used sparingly, battery drains and reaches 50% SoC in 8 days, considering conservative drain percentage of 7% a day.
Now lets take a fact that 450’s battery has a total life span of 3000 DoD (Depth of Discharge).
Above assumption is based on this post.. Considering battery is charged and discharged daily basis, battery will reach 70% of its capacity in 3 years. i.e. again conservative case of 300 DoD per year, 900 DoD for 3 years, 1800 DoD for 6 years and 2700 DoD for 9 years and 3000 DoD for 10 years (all considering linear scale)
Now, let us go back to our IDLE discharge calculation
- 8 days to reach 50% SoC, in other words 0.5 DoD is simply lost
- So, in 365 days, 22.8 DoD is lost
- In 3 years, 68.4
- In 6 years, 136.8
- In 9 years, 205.2
- in 10 years 228 DoD is lost.
In other words, 7.6% (228/3000) DoD of life of battery is simply lost in IDLE state. It simply means, we could pull at least 1 to 2 years more if the idle drain is less or zero.
So, Isn’t it worth to shutdown our 450 when it is not in use?
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Yes defintely. I’m now considering triggering my battery to have it’s stroke and Ather to fix it for free 
just because they don’t want to take the first step towards rectifying the issue because they don’t have the time and effort to do it.
As your first few thousand customers. Is this too much to ask? When you guys can give away so many man hours into designing and manufacturing the transparent panel for the series 1 cuz they trusted in you. We aren’t asking for a call back. Even slots for a few scooters every week is acceptable. If not something on the lines of the 3G sim swap. at least in our regular scheduled service… After 3 yrs, you claim that
Firstly. Your new recommendations might not have reached every owners who can be affected. And the probability of it happening after the warranty is low. But if it does. It won’t be converted. That’s trying to push over an issue that should be covered in the warranty, to tip over into the post warranty period. Also there’s nothing stopping me from repeatedly shutting down at 100% to trigger the issue and Ather has to fix it under warranty. A recommendation of type of usage cannot be a way of getting out of a warranty claim is it ? I didn’t do this math that @rajeshkav did but, this scares me a lot!
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I have a question. I don’t if it’s me driving a little more rough than usual, but, I have a feeling that cold weather in Bangalore is having an effect on my range. Usually, on sport mode I would get around 75kms without pillion and regular tyre pressures. Now, I think without any other factor changing at all, my range has dropped to around 68-70km on sport mode. Is it the cold? Please tell me it’s the cold.
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@tarun @ather Any plans to have trials with these batteries? Looks like a pretty great addition. https://yourstory.com/2020/12/startup-bharat-bhubaneswar-based-nexus-power-ev-battery-startup/amp
1 Like