There have been reports of one of our scooters having an incident recently. This occurred a few weeks ago, wherein the wiring harness of a scooter caught fire in Bangalore. Thankfully, our customer is safe, and there was no further damage.
Our teams investigated and identified the root cause of the issue in the wiring harness assembly. One of the connectors to the motor controller was torqued incorrectly, which unfortunately resulted in sparking around the controller terminals. Our safety systems kicked in immediately and cut off further power flow, limiting the damage. However, the wiring harness had unfortunately caught fire by then.
The battery, BMS and the dashboard remained completely unaffected during the incident. We would like to further clarify that the incident had nothing to do with a battery thermal runaway event and the battery continued to operate normally post the incident also. All our battery packs are designed, manufactured, and tested by our teams in India and remain subject to the highest quality and testing standards in the world.
This was a rare human error on our part, and we have since then updated our manufacturing operations, upgraded our equipment, and introduced a two-step verification process for this process to prevent any such future occurrences.
If this is a fault from the manufacturing process, this cannot be isolated to only one vehicle. Do we have a way to find how many other scooters might be potentially affected by this issue?
Yes, I am wondering whether the staff who fixed that scooter during assembly was assigned to only one scooter! Most likely, he might have continued the same way until this incident
Well, to avoid the human error, a proper tool, periodic calibration of the tool and a torque chart should be provided to the staffs in the assembly, specifically to those handling the battery. We can’t make an error when we proudly say to our friends and unknown persons whoever approach us about the scooter that the Ather products are indigenous and are the best!
On one side it is good to know that they have upgraded their manufacturing process to prevent any further damages. On the other, it is concerning that there is no information or acknowledgement that the same issue does not affect other vehicles which are already in road.
Just a way of saying to the public they forgot to tighten that nut, the only connecter which required torque is the motor connection everything else I remember is a snap-on connector. There is 3 phase connector and 2 battery terminals now that is dangerous if someone forgets to tighten them.
don’t think there will be any recalls as it was one in a million event, and they have updated the process as a 2-step verification. which will stop it from happening in the future.
Since 450 gen 2 the power distribution has changed, In gen 1 and 1.5, the power cables route in the battery pack and then to the motor, in the pack itself. from gen 2 onwards, they have moved it to a separate power distributor where everything is connected. too bad, one loose nut and you are seeing a short circuit.
It is indeed worrisome that it took 2 weeks for the company to acknowledge the incident. While this is not something they can push a software update to fix, a recall to the SC to have the vehicle checked is required to prevent this from happening to another vehicle and also to increase the customer trust.
Frankly, the trust I had in Ather is slowly decreasing when I keep seeing these type of incidents.
It is crucial for your mechanics to exercise utmost caution and not disregard any issues, as they could pose significant problems in the future. It is imperative that you prioritize your responsibility towards your customers and avoid drawing negative attention from competitors eagerly waiting for such news.
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