Thank you for further clarifying my queries and taking the time for it.
When I buy a product and when in warranty, I would expect the manufacturer of the product to roll out upgrade features and fine tune without any extra charges under warranty period.
For me atleast asking the customer who has purchased a product and to bare the cost of further development on it, doesn’t make sense. You advertise your product as technological driven instrument…so features or fixes should be part of the initial warranty and not part of a paid service.
Limiting the performance of the bike in it’s full capability based on the subscription you purchase is not easily digestible nor fare for me to be a customer.
Warranty by itself only relates to addressing manufacturing defects (HW/SW), hence upgrades are out of the ambit.
Eg: I purchased a Hyundai hatch and after 2 years they launched a facelifted version. Is Hyundai obligated to provide a free upgrade on the new fog lamps?
For some reason people tend to assume everyone should get the latest version If any software for free (ala android /iOS annual updates). Building software is expensive, this isn’t one guy with a MacBook and Xcode installed churning out 1000s of lines of code by the hour.
Maintaining data is expensive, building and maintaining multiple interfaces to interpret that data is resource intensive.
The 2 points you mentioned does make sense to a given perspective and not going to deny that.
Looking for hardware upgrades as you mentioned is of the question. Demanding a new fog lamp, the dealer or the manufacture would have shown the exit and not the variants of available options.
Completely agree that building a peice of code is not one man’s job and requires a team to perfect it, but as a customer if I purchase a product (phone or PC) the updates should not be priced on subricption model, say a firmware update to fix a bug or to software feature to improve customer experience should not be a part of it. Within a warranty period or a life cycle of a hardware the updates should be part of it to enhance the aspects. After warranty expiration charging a price for the same is valid and unquestionable. I really dont mind using xcode or cocoa on it.
Usually cars entertainment units. ECU and other software stuff gets upgrade from all automakers such as Honda, Mahindra etc. free in warranty period. (TVS ntorq for scooter)
I understand that Ather is not similar but still i would have assumed at 1.4 lakhs (incl subsidy) at 2x the price of the ntorq, Ather would have earned some margins. But if the cost accounting includes cost of setup, factory, license and operations fee as well as margin for showing profits y-o-y to investors then the business will definitely be selling every scooter at a loss
I now totally understand the pro and plus subscription and the impact of it on the battery and hence the rate difference. But nobody explained why bluetooth functioanality are limited to the Pro subcription. Does that also affect the battery ? Sounds really stupid. I think, someone in the forum asked the same question and there was no answer from the ather team. I would request the bluetooth functionality to be enabled as a base variant option.
Bluetooth access along with the other hardware, fast charging speed, range etc is not just about enabling the hardware, but there’s a lot of software development and maintenance costs that go into it. Today, both the Plus and Pro have the same hardware, and the subscription plan allows you the flexibility of choosing either based on your usage. Enabling higher torque, more range, and more power on the scooter does make an impact on the battery, even if it’s minor, and this has an impact on the cost.
In the future, if there’s enough demand for the Plus variant, we’ll consider differential hardware between the Plus and Pro, to further drive down costs. This practice is actually pretty common in the auto industry.
Hi, @Ather.Team I have a question on what could be considered marginal costs.
Connected features: Is there a SIM card in the scooter? Do we have to purchase a data plan for the scooter (in addition to the 2000/1700/400 we pay as “subscription”)?
Are home charging expenses reimbursed as it is done for Ather 450?
Yes, there’s an embedded SIM card on the dashboard. If you opt for the battery subscription plans, connectivity is included in the plan. If you pay upfront, you can opt for Ather Charge at 400+GST per month for connectivity and unlimited public charging.
With the 450, some users got Ather One free for the first year, and some got Ather Service. Only Ather One includes home charging reimbursements.
abhishek.balaji this is a convincing answer only for those opting for upfront purchase.
When I am going for subscription plan, the hardware needs to be there and yet the features are limited to only Pro (I mean TPMS & Bluetooth related, not the performance related ones).
Let’s not discuss about the norm here, when we are trying to be different.
@abhishek.balaji let’s see a case that i purchased vehicle(Ather 450x pro model) under subscription (lets say Rs99k plan) and used vehicle for 1 year. Then if i want to cancel the plan after1yr, how much extra i may want to pay?Is this possible? After this exit, can i subscribe for Ather connect plan alone?
It is possible. If you did a search before posting this question, you would’ve got your answer. That one day where @abhishek.balaji was like a marathon runner and answered questions one by one…has answers for almost everything about the 450x pricing.
Anyway, below is the answer for your question.
Yes. You can choose to take whatever subscription plan that exists at that time, Ather One, Ather Connect, Ather Charge, Ather Service or whatever. You also have the choice of not taking any subscription plan too.
Could you please think of a model for folks who won’t extensively use the bike? Most of us use the bike for ~400km per month since we have car for long drives. I have just reached 21k on my 6 year old petrol bike. We might not reach 50K KM before 10 years so please provide a nominal plan for those customers and restrict the warranty on KM instead of years.
