Is Ather designed to FAIL ? And is company seeking revenues from subscriptions?

Ather Grid, Accessories and more
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Hello There,

Its quite a disappointment to write this issue on this forum. I remember having the initial glimpse of Ather 340 in the year 2015 at Surge Event. It was unveiled there. I thought to myself to own this vehicle one day and I did finally buy 450 last year.

I have done around 6.5k KM so far. The vehicle is fantastic,. . … But, it also had visited the service station at least 3-4 times. ie, the vehicle is breaking down for average 1.5k to 2k KM. Its quite strange for a new vehicle to breakdown at this intervals. I had subscription and the expenditures was covered.

I support the start-ups and would like to see Ather Grow, But unfortunately with my recent experiences dealing with the company, I really doubt the company is going in good direction.

1, When I booked the vehicle for myself , the company had issue with backend portal which was not allowing me to process the loan application. After 4-6 months, I personally visited the store and requested them to update. An then the issue was solved

2, I also booked 450x and transferred the booking to my friend - there was lots of failed promises of delivery time and He had faced several issues

3, I also referred another friend to by 450x - Due to poor customer Serivce and NO interaction or communication for over a month. The issue was simple- just to refresh the loan application. He later cancelled the booking.

4, Its been over 45 days since I had requested Ather customer care to update my referral bonus, And they haven’t. , My current subscription is Due for renewal, and I am not allowed to use the referral bonus.

5, Not even a year since I bought the vehicle, The simcard of the dashboard instrument is already outdated and the company is expecting us to pay INR 2400 just to get it dashboard updated.

6, A year ago, I was told the company is coming up with multiple charging facilities, within the radius of 4km in Bangalore, But I dont see much progress.

Not a fan of public shaming. But I do not want any one to experience the same. This is really disappointing to have trusted this company. All of these cumulative experiences makes me wonder, Is Ather Designed to Fail ? and keep the customers, Oh I mean the USERS on subscription for ever ?

I was wondering to make a video and post it online, But thought to share with this forum and get advices from fellow Ather Owners.

Please advice my next step.

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Subscriptions aren’t the issue here; they’ve got to keep the lights on too. The service route is almost closed because of the lack of maintenance requirements as opposed to ICE based vehicles, so subscriptions are the only reliable revene stream they have.

That said, the laundry list of hardware and software issues, and the tall claims that are later unable to be fulfilled are quite annoying to say the least. As we speak, customer service has been dragging its heels for something as simple as a registered email change request that I had raised ages ago. There seems to be an average wait time of 10 minutes for a customer service call to connect, assuming the system doesn’t hang up on you first.

With resources strained to the breaking point to service a single city, they’ve embarked on a ten fold expansion. No idea what was being smoked when this decision was taken. The focus seems to be to increase revenue at the expense of existing customers (or users, as known in the drug and software sectors). Should be interesting to see where this whole show ends up.

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I wish I had seen this post before December 2020.

Looks like I am not the only one who had gone through hell during booking. I feel cheated, Every single promise Ather Made in their Marketing material, Customer Service, Relationship Manager even Automated Service request acknowledgement email are BIG LIE.

I did write in this forum about the issues I faced within a month of owning the vehicle after there was no proper response from the tickets raised from within the app, email & phone.

I was strategically silenced,

Don’t know where all this leads to, I am more worried about the gadget [ Ather 450x ] durability.

@harshasettygr if and when you make the video, and if you require, I can share my journey so far with ATHER, I have documented, every single pain point dealing with ATHER & TEAM.

If Ather is designed to FAIL why should we Customers / Subscribers go down with them.

Vinod

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My colleague had to check up on me why I laughed so hard.

Anyways, this issue reminds me of what is now happening with HDFC Bank. Finally the govt. stopped them from issuing new credit cards till they rectify all the server issues and delay in redressal.

Hope Ather invests more in customer support and release updates only if it is stable. New cities and further expansion can wait.

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I think fundamental problem is software… they need to hire good software engineers… even glassdoor feedback of employees are not great… like they say “if you pay peanuts you get monkeys :monkey:”… on a serious note I feel they should hire better software engineers…also i don’t know if moving from Linux to Android was good or bad… Android was designed for camera/mobile… dont know how good this OS is as a operating system for an EV… I hope the best for Ather All customer service issues can be fixed by helpdesk like software… may be hardware engineers are trying to write software… with ola opening near bangalore… poaching is going to happen… ather 450 is a good product… so was Reva at one time… do you remember Reva/G wiz… hope we don’t see a Reva/Nokia/Blackberry in Ather… I wish nothing but the best

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Ha ha ha, when the work comes, looks like they become sober and unproductive.

@h.vinodkumar, I didn’t intend to post here also, But later realised not many people are talking about it. I have spoken to more than 4 Ather owners and they also had issues with booking. Its for sure the entire service department are not worried about this,. I too have enough materials to prove this.

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