Yup, Courtesy is expected but not guaranteed… It is just like you expect courtesy and rules during railway gate opening and signals 
And, not every one might be diligently moving and parking the charged Ather at a safe location also…
Nope !!
It’s even dangerous, the charger acts as a lock, if anyone can remove it over 80% then it’s a easy to steal.
Also I dont want anyone to move my vehicle to different place when iam not there.
Rather, proper way would be to charge the owners a fine amount if left at the spot when vehicle is fully charged.
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Past December, when Ather Grid becomes a paid service, non Ather One users will need to pay for a time slot. However, this gives rise to the question of what happens if a non Ather One user does not disconnect their vehicle after their time slot? Merely halting the charging is not a good enough solution, as one may simply leave their vehicle connected to the charging point, and use the spot as parking. There needs to be some liability for not disconnecting their vehicle in a timely manner, and the same liability should be applied to Ather One users if they do not remove their vehicle soon after reaching 80% charge (it was mentioned above that some rely solely on Ather Grid, and may require the extra range for a trip, however, charging past 80% is very time consuming. It is unfair for a user in need of charge to have to wait till another vehicle reaches 100%, which takes a loooong time. If someone solely relies on the Grid, and requires the extra 20% charge, it’s on them to come back at a time when the charger is free. You can’t deny someone who is in desperate need of charge just because you want an extra 20%. I believe the Grid should always auto unlock the charging plug past 80% for Ather One users. For those who pay per time slot, in those cases, the plug should unlock at the end of the time slot).
As mentioned above, the problem with unlocking the charging plug from the vehicle is that some users are not comfortable with others unplugging / moving their vehicles.
However, I must ask the question, if you were being considerate and courteous, then obviously you would remove your vehicle from the Ather Grid spot when your slot is over / when an Ather One user reaches 80% charge. As long as you are being considerate, no one is going to remove the plug or move the vehicle, since the plug will be locked to the vehicle.
I do not understand the argument that people are uncomfortable with someone else unplugging their vehicles. The only people who would ever need to do that are other Ather users, in need of the charge, and they know how to plug the charger in and out. As long as you are being considerate and remove your vehicle in a timely manner, no one is going to even get the opportunity to unplug anyway.
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Can you please explain how?
If the charger automatically unlocks after the scooters reaches certain percentage of charge (Let’s keep it as 80% for the sake of discussion)… There will be a possibility of the charger coming out by itself by tension (the resulting fall can damage the plug). There is a possibility of some mischief mongers just plug out for fun. It may not be always an Ather user.
Don’t forget AtherOne users would’ve paid additional for this service. It may seem unfair, but he has paid for a service and he has come before another guy. He gets the advantage. Simple.
similar to what @prasathvishnu has written a few posts above, courtesy can be a expected/requested but it can’t be guaranteed/demanded
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This free time is now extended till the end of March 2020. we have another 3 more months to discuss on different perspectives, possibilites, solutions etc. before Ather can finalize something
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Charging @ Ather grid solution I feel there must be alarm in owners mobile once Ather is charged up fully & alarm should not go off till the owner do not unplugged the Ather from grid.
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Haha, problem is not only with Ather grid !!
Tesla and other EV owners block gas stations to spread awareness of ICE vehicles blocking charging stations !!
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It’s a simple solution. Just follow the lead what the big EV firms does,
Charge for idle time (>90 or 100%) per min and the problem is solved.
No Ather owner would be lethargic to leave the bike on charge when they know (s)he will be charged per min after full charge.
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To add to this:
While we are discussing about charger hogging…I’d like to share an experience from yesterday’s ride.
I was not in town and was hence unable to make it to the Ather ride yesterday. However, My scooter didn’t miss the ride. My Bro-in-law and nephew were there with my scooter. He had forgotten to charge the scooter the previous night and the scooter had only 55% charge when he started on Sunday Morning. Since he was visiting Ather Space and Patels inn have Ather Grid chargers, he took the risk and started.
Upon reaching Ather Space, all 3 chargers were occupied. Since he was in the A group, he decided to charge it at Patel’s inn. He asked a Volunteer at Patel’s Inn and plugged the scooter in. Range remaining was 25kms (Eco mode) at this time. My home is around 30 kms. Based on his own experience at the Atherspace, he didn’t want to hog the charger. Therefore, after around 45 mins, he decided to remove the charger so that it’ll be helpful to any other user in need. When he went to the scooter, he saw that the charger was removed from my scooter and another scooter was put for charging!! The range remaining in my scooter was 26kms (Eco mode) which shows that it was removed in probably 1 or 2 minutes after it was plugged in 
The range remaining in the other scooter was 60+kms.
While he was surprised how another Ather owner could do something this to a fellow Ather owner, I was surprised how was it even possible for the the charger to be removed in the first place!!!
So, he repaid the favour, removed the charger and put it back to my scooter! But from then on he didn’t have much time left as he had to come back home. The charge remaining was just about matching the distance to travel. He thought even if it runs out, he will use some other Grid charger on the way. When he reached home it was 3kms
Even though my scooter reached home safe (although my BIL was forced to ride in that boring ECO mode the entire day), I have couple of points to make:
- How was it possible to remove the charger? Why didn’t the solenoid lock?
- Some members here have written that if it’s another Ather owner, they are ok to have them remove the charger and move their scooter as they know how to operate. But with this experience, my belief that “courtesy can only be expected but not guaranteed” is reinforced. hence NOBODY, even it’s another Ather owner must be able to unplug another Ather which is already charging
PS: My BIL has taken a photo of the scooter that was charging after it was removed from mine. I don’t want to post it here as that is not an important point here.
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I think your brother in law didn’t plug it in properly. Only possible way of someone else could remove it. Or the solenoid didn’t lock. I think sometimes it takes about a minute to lock I suppose?
Either way, you’re right, I’m not comfortable with another person (even an Ather owner) removing the charger while my scooter is plugged in.
The fact that it gained a kms worth of charge means that it was plugged in properly. Moreover, the fact that he could go it again shows that the solenoid didn’t lock even in that other scooter.
Solenoid not locking is the main issue and another Ather owner removing it while in use is the second issue here.
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I noticed a similar thing at Nature’s basket Sadashivnagar. The solenoid hadn’t locked in a fellow athers scooter and he had 95% SoC. This was long ago and I didn’t know that the public chargers also cannot be unplugged without the key and I tried unplugging it and it worked. I put my scooter to charge and went to nature’s basket and by the time I came back another Ather had unplugged mine and was charging his scooter. I had enough charge to get home that day, so it didn’t affect me. But is this a common occurrence ?
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@hemanth.anand, as far as I have noticed, if the key is Turned off when the charged is plugged, it is not locking. It happens with me everyday even at home charger.
So, I turn on the vehicle to see the message turn off key to start charging and then lock the scooter.
This is a very common occurrence for me. I suppose something of this sorts might have happened !
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I had the same experience.
https://forum.atherenergy.com/t/charging-at-ather-grid/292/332?u=nit1995
I was waiting for over an hour in front of a fully charged vehicle and someone came in rented Ather (Royal Brothers or something). He was also fully out of charge. I told him very confidently that you cannot charge and you will have to wait till the other guy comes. He still went ahead and pulled it out. It wasn’t locked or anything. I thought that it was maybe an error. I didn’t want to pull it out from my scooter for the fear of damaging the port or the charger.
While the ability to pull out the charger might be helpful in case someone is hogging the place, I won’t be confident of putting my scooter to charge when someone could easily remove it.
This was at Innov8 Koramangala.
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There is a solenoid lock issue with some 450s, including mine. While I look at it as a convenience rather than a issue, it’s definitely not ok to remove the charger from another bike without approval.
This is a big no-no!
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See if you can pull out the entire Ather fast charger and take it home 
, installing at this place is useless move by @Ather.Team
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Very disappointing. The person should have left your vehicle to charge first even if he was in need of the grid. But even after seeing ur battery % he has disconnected from your moped is completely unacceptable. You should actually share the image of that moped so that everyone will know and he himself will know. Everyone facing similar issues at different public charging are keeping quite without sharing those pictures. You can share them. So then at least probably if they are on the forum they will explain what happened
I am sorry this happened. On the public charging points, the connector’s locking mechanism itself may have gotten damaged which prevents the locking. Now, our team does a monthly check of all the Ather Grid points during which we catch this and replace the connector. I have alerted the team on this - it should NOT be possible to remove the connector while the key is off and vehicle is charging. They will get the point checked and replace the connector.
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