Since Chennai is going under full lockdown till June 30, Ather Space will be closed, and vehicle service will not be available. We’ll still take service requests through the app and through customer service, but will be able to act on them only when restrictions are lifted. Deliveries have been paused temporarily. Please note that most Ather Grid locations will be unavailable as well, and we’ve updated the status on the App. We’ll communicate again when we have more information regarding operations resuming
We announced a new price for Ather One Subscription plans, and that it would be effective from 1st July, 2020. However, being sensitive to the current pandemic situation, we are pushing the effective date for this price revision by 3 months. So, if your complimentary subscription is ending, you can renew your Ather One subscription plans at the current quarterly equivalent prices for the next 3 months, to prevent any discontinuity in services and smart features.
Here are the rates at which you can renew your subscription:
Ather One Connect: Rs. 750/quarter + GST
Ather One Service: Rs. 1,500/quarter + GST
Ather One 360: Rs. 2100/quarter + GST
Note: When your subscription renewal date is approaching, we’ll send you an email with a link to renew your subscription.
Charging at Ather Grid will continue to be accessible for free to all Ather owners till 1 October 2020, and hence Ather Charge will not be required as a subscription pack this quarter.
A brand new exchange program, in partnership with CredR
Hey everyone,
Over the last two years, we’ve had thousands of owners shift from traditional Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) two-wheelers to the Ather 450. We’ve heard from several of them that they’d like a hassle free, quick way to switch to the fast and electric Ather 450.
We’re excited to announce a new exchange program that’ll help a lot more of you move to the Ather 450, and make the switch to a smart and intelligent scooter, faster.
We’ve partnered with CredR, to enable a smooth experience for those who want to exchange their existing two-wheelers for a new Ather 450. Here’s how it’ll work:
Walk in to Ather Space in Chennai or Bengaluru (No pre-order necessary) with your old scooter & original documents (detailed below). Our trained product specialists will help estimate the value of your current scooter through a physical inspection. We are leveraging CredR’s tech to evaluate your scooter at Ather Space and estimate the value.
You’ll get an instant quote generated for your old two-wheeler. Leave your old two-wheeler with us and we’ll get a final inspection and document verification done through CredR.
Post document verification within a few days, your quote will be approved/modified accordingly. You can make the full payment for the remaining amount once CredR approves the quote.
Do remember to carry the below original documents for the two-wheeler you’re exchanging, for a seamless experience.
Documents required:
Original RC, 2 Photocopy of address proof, 2 Photocopy of ID proof, All keys, Original Insurance (not mandatory).
In case of the vehicle being on loan or if the vehicle is not in your name, you’d also need to bring the Original Purchase Invoice, RTO NOC, Bank NOC, Letter for the nomination of ownership: (with ID proof).
We have an update on the operations in Chennai, now that the lockdown restrictions have been relaxed:
Ather Space, Chennai will be open for walk ins from today, however test rides will be available after 10 July.
Pending deliveries will resume from 8 July.
Note: To ensure that you always get the latest information regarding the status of services:
Reach out to customer care for any queries on service, deliveries etc.
If you plan on using any of the Ather Grid charging points, do check the Ather App for the latest status on the grid point before heading there and follow all precautions including sanitizing your hands after handling the charge connector, and wearing a mask when you’re in a public location.
Good news! We’ve raised an additional INR 84 crores from Hero MotoCorp, as an extension of our Series C round led by Sachin Bansal. Hero MotoCorp has been a part of Ather’s growth journey since 2016, when they first invested as a part of Series B. We are confident that this will help us accelerate our long term vision and direction.
We’ll soon be entering 10 new markets, and the funding will help in developing our production facilities to meet the demand for the Ather 450X across the country.
Thank you all the Ather 450 owners and vibrant community for keeping us steadfast in our journey of building great products and experiences.
An update on Ather Grid locations. We’ve signed a pan-India deal with Sangeetha Mobiles, to help us expand our Ather Grid charging network across India. The agreement allows us to use their retail outlets when needed for installing Ather Grid fast chargers, especially in new cities that we are going to launch in.
Upgrading your Ather 450 to 4G LTE. All your questions answered
Hey folks,
We’ve got official communication from Vodafone India that they’re pulling the plug on 3G services in Chennai and Bengaluru by 27 August. Vodafone was supposed to sunset 3G coverage much later, but this has taken us by surprise. This announcement means that Ather 450s with Vodafone SIMs will default to 2G networks. We made a transition in our line to equip newly produced vehicles with a BSNL SIM, for a range of other reasons. These vehicles won’t be affected as BSNL will continue to operate 3G.
(Which SIM does your vehicle have? Read below.)
The good news is we’re working on a 4G upgrade module that can be fit in existing Ather 450s on the road. Since it is a hardware upgrade, we expect it to take about 4-5 months including the time for development, testing, deployment on your Ather 450.
In this transition phase, the only option is to fallback to 2G networks, due to which some smart features might not be seamless.
Navigation experience will be slower
Onboard navigation is dependent on good connectivity speeds, and hence would be impacted due the temporary change to 2G services. Loading of the Maps screen, along with search-based functions would be slower. However, pushing location from your Ather App will work as expected. We’ve recently rolled out the ability to share a location to the App, from any other app on your phone, which should make the experience better.
We are working on improving some features so they work better with 2G services through an OTA update before the phase-out occurs. We’ll be releasing this OTA update (ver 4.2.2) shortly for all Ather 450s on road, with improvements under the hood to make the experience under 2G better.
Ride statistics and sync will work as expected
We’ve been testing the reliability of data sync and ride statistics on the App with 2G networks over the past few weeks, and there won’t be any impact on your experience here. You’ll continue to see real time charging status, get ride statistics after every ride, and remotely track the location of your scooter.
Your scooter will still get OTA updates
Any OTA updates rolled out during this time would take longer to download, but we expect that the experience would not be impacted as the OTA is downloaded automatically when it’s made available. Updates will get installed when your scooter is plugged in for the night. If an OTA is taking too long, you can reach out to our customer service team, so it can be installed manually.
Upgrade to a 4G module
We’ll be making a 4G module available as an upgrade for owners. Our team is exploring the most cost effective way to get you this upgrade. We will announce more details in due course. With the upgrade, your Ather 450 will have 4G LTE connectivity at par with the upcoming Ather 450X. With the upgrade, 4G LTE will ensure much faster connectivity speeds, significantly improved experience and reliability in all urban areas.
Update: While we’re working quickly on finding the best solution, our team is still exploring if swapping to BSNL SIMs temporarily is feasible and we’ll get back to you on this shortly.
Ather One Connect
We understand it’s not fair to pay for a sub-par experience during the transition phase and hence if you’ve already subscribed to an Ather One plan, you’ll get credits worth a portion of Connect plan’s value, prorated based on the number of days your vehicle would be using 2G during your plan. Also, whenever your Ather One renewal comes up next, you’ll get an upfront discount worth a portion of the Connect plan’s value, prorated based on the estimated number of days your vehicle would be using 2G until we make the 4G upgrade available to you. We are currently operationalizing this. We will share the exact discount amount and other details on this thread itself within 1 week.
For customers under lease, we’ll discuss with Autovert and get back to you when we have a solution.
Which SIM does my Ather 450 have?
As a general rule, if the last 4 digits of your vehicle identification number (VIN) is less than or equal to 4182, your vehicle has been equipped with a Vodafone SIM and if that’s greater than or equal to 4183, your vehicle has been equipped with a BSNL SIM.
Vehicles delivered from 15 August onwards, regardless of VIN, have been equipped with a BSNL SIM.
We are rolling out our first resolution to the Vodafone 3G discontinuation. OTA update 4.2.2 will optimize the connected experience at slower network speeds. This will ensure that the most used connected features are less affected even on a 2G network.
Additionally, our teams have worked out a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for swapping the SIM cards from Vodafone to BSNL. Initially our teams were concerned about swapping SIM cards since it needs special test equipment to validate the sealing of the dashboards (we don’t open the dashboards to the PCB level in general service). Doing this would have meant a very long process of sending dashboards back to our supplier’s facilities and hours of labor and logistics cost. However, the engineering teams have come up with a work-around to this. We will need ~4 weeks to setup an efficient process and we should be ready by mid-Sept to start swapping SIM cards.
Rest assured, your dashboards are our responsibility and owners won’t be at risk in this changeover. (side bar: there is a learning here for our design teams. The integrated nature of the dashboard which made SIM-swaps so hard was not the right choice and will be addressed with the 450X and 450+ onwards)
The SIM swap to BSNL will be free of cost for owners, however to ensure we cover the SIM swap for all owners quickly, you’ll have to drop off your scooter at the service center and pick it up when the swap is done, just this once . Alternatively we will do the change as part of your next scheduled service appointment ourselves.
Finally, development of the 4G upgrade module in the form of a dongle is on fast track mode now and under testing. Given automotive testing requirements it will still need 4 months for deployment but we will make sure that the community is kept abreast of updates.
The 3G discontinuation was not a complete surprise but yes, the timeline caught us a few months early. In acknowledgement of this, we will:
Reduce the cost of Ather Connect by 50% for all affected users, until the 4G dongle is ready. The discount (Rs. 125/month) will also be extended to other AtherOne subscription packs.
Offer a discounted rate on the 4G dongle with Ather bearing a part of the cost. The dongle will be available at ~Rs.2500 + GST.
We are grateful to the community for your patience and want to ensure everybody that this is our highest priority currently
There are still lots of people looking to get the Ather 450 as their first EV, and who better than our owners and enthusiasts to give them a gentle nudge We are refreshing our referral program to enable referrals for the Ather 450 as well. So go ahead, grab your referral code in your inbox or on your dashboard (app.atherenergy.com), and convince one more person to go electric! Next time you convince someone to buy an Ather 450, both of you get benefits!
When they buy an Ather 450, both of you get Rs. 2500 credits that can be redeemed against Ather One subscriptions, starting October.
You’ll find more information in your inbox. If you want to share your referral code, head to the Referral Hub in your dashboard app.atherenergy.com/user/referral.
This hopefully addresses the requests from the community for charging points in South Bengaluru and Yelahanka.
Go try out charging at these locations if it’s on your way, and spend some time while your Ather 450 charges up!
The pandemic and the lockdown slowed us down in installing new Ather Grid Points and also impacted some of our hosts who’ve unfortunately had to shut down. But things are looking up now. Soon we will have a couple more Ather Grid locations added as well to cover more grey areas in the city. Yes, we’ve had a few downtime issues across some locations in the city, but rest assured, we are working on the same to resolve them. Stay tuned!
We’ve installed three new Ather Grid points in Bengaluru. These Grid points should cover some of the requested areas. So if you’re on your way and pass by these Grid points, stop by and explore the locations, grab something to eat while your Ather charges up!
There are heavy rains in Chennai along with a cyclone alert for the next few days. Ather Space and Servicing in Chennai would be closed for the next few days. Here are some precautions you can take to ensure you Ather scooter isn’t affected by the cyclone:
Disconnect and turn the charger off, especially if your charger is installed in an open space
Ensure you park it on higher ground and under a covered space if possible. Avoid parking on inclines.
If you’re parking it outside, make sure the scooter is parked on firm ground. Avoid parking on loose soil, since heavy winds are expected.
In case of any unfortunate flooding in an area, try to ensure the water doesn’t go above the floorboard if it is safe to do so.
If the water level is above the floorboard, do not turn on the scooter or operate it. Wait for it to completely dry and reach out to the service team for an inspection.
The new subscription plans are now live! If you’ve been waiting for the new Connect & Service plans, you can go ahead and subscribe to a new plan. Head over to app.atherenergy.com and click on “Manage subscription” to choose between Lite and Pro plans.
If you missed out on the earlier announcement of what’s included in the plans or you have a tough time deciding between Pro and Lite, here’s a refresher:
Note: All prices above are exclusive of GST. Those eligible for Series 1 benefits will see the Ather Service Pro plan applied automatically for a year. This will reflect on your dashboard post the delivery of your scooter.
Pro-tip: The next time your subscription is up for renewal, you can make use of any referral credits that you’ve accrued. For a lot of you, this should cover a significant portion of the cost of taking up Ather Service and Ather Connect.
Haven’t referred yet? Go ahead and convince a few of your friends or family to switch to an Ather 450X or Plus (make sure they use your referral code) for these sweet benefits.
As you might have been aware, Google services were down for some time today. Connected services might be down for a bit since we use Google cloud for backend servers. Some ride stats might see issues since it uses google to track start/end locations and addresses. We’re checking on the impact and will share an update on the impact.
A lot of you would have experienced longer waiting times on calls and responses over email recently, and we’re aware of the issue. The last couple of months have been incredibly busy for us as we expand into newer cities and onboard lots of new Ather owners.
Our average call waiting time has jumped up from 19s to about 2 minutes, and many of you got dropped off the calls as you were waiting. Our average email response time has increased from 3 hours to about 14 hours
This is definitely not the experience we’d want you to have, and rest assured that our teams are treating this as a top priority. We’re working on fixing this in the next few weeks through a few solutions. In the short term, we’re onboarding more people who’d be able to answer calls, and in the long-term, we’re working on making it easier to resolve common queries through the app.
If you have a query that’s not urgent, please consider dropping an email or post it in the #Ask an owner thread. While our community won’t be able to answer individual queries, you’ll find plenty of answers and suggestions from fellow Ather Owners.
. Alternatively we will do the change as part of your next scheduled service appointment ourselves.
We are refreshing our referral program to enable referrals for the Ather 450 as well. So go ahead, grab your referral code in your inbox or on your dashboard (
