I doubt Ather will react so soon and will wait to see if Ola can deliver vehicles soon. Coming to countering with better product, I doubt if Ather has work going on unknow product in the background with better specs. S1 itself matches 450x in terms of specs and costs Rs 45K less. What can Ather do about it?
Problem is Ather never really tried to increase the range with bigger battery. 450 to 450x changes are lackluster and came with ~50% higher on road price increase. They were always concentrating on smart features and warp speed. Worst part is even after 3 years, most of the smart features does not work. They tried to be niche company with 450x launch and it worked till now as there is no real competition. Whatever the competition that is there from traditional automakers with Chetak and iQube have targeted 450x with similar or worse specs, pricing and even worse availability.
If they hit the panic button now, then they will be behind already. They should have been on alert as soon as Ola raised Rs 3000 crores and acquired Etergo or at least when they announced 10 million capacity factory at the end of 2020.
Wonderful pricing to begin with. I just hope they don’t increase the prices (which is imminent IMO), at least for the people who booked it before today’s event.
Cruise control, hill hold, voice activation, proximity lock/unlock, geo fencing, customisable screens,wifi…That’s everything that one needs and more.
Real world range of S1 is almost same as Ather 450x. S1Pro’s range will reduce range anxiety by a great extent to city users.
Everything in the spec sheet has hit the right notes so far. Now, if the vehicle is even as good as Ather, if not better, Ola has a winner. The only people sad would be those who expected removable batteries, but otherwise, all others will be happy with this.
One thing I observed about pricing. FAMEII subsidy will be given for a max ex factory of ₹1,50,000. So, Ola will be eligible for a maximum of ₹60,000 FAMEII subsidy(40% of ex-factory price for a max of 1.5L or 15k per kwh for 4kwh battery, whichever way we see it). It means the ex showroom price should be 90,000. But it is ₹99,999 for the S1 and ₹1,29,999 for the S1 pro. So the difference of ₹9,999 for S1 and ₹39,999 for the S1pro will have to be invoiced as … “performance upgrade”.
Its feels bad man… I literally spent 1.65 lakhs on my 450x and in 2 months price dropped by 15k and now the Ola scooter beats it.
The software features on Ola scooter literally makes me wonder why did I pay for a connectivity subscription to ather because even after paying for the subscription I’m not getting even 20-30% of the features on Ola scooter…
Its really disappointing for the existing ather 450x owners…
Ola scooter has an amazing software while ather software is sooo buggy and never getting fixed.
I am switching to either of these after 3 years. By that time we will know the pros and cons of ola and simple energy. Definitely not sticking with ather unless they bring something that is in par with these two and BUG FREE software.I am so annoyed with the software. Not even a single release of patch that is bug free.
There are many like us. I took delivery yesterday. But I believed in Ather as range I am not worried with my usage. Moreover looks, ride and handling of Ather I liked the most
I wish Ather delivers bug free Dashboard and App experience.
Ather needs act quickly to retain its market. Below are the ones the they need to change asap.
Software - bug free and other customisation that competitors are coming up with.
Get rid of Subscription models - Ola did not announce anything of that kind.
Range - need think about ways to increase
Charging stations - either by colobrating with other ev charging stations or install their own
I am sure people who owns Ather through lease option will be thinking about other options now.
But I agree Ather being the first in EV market they did their best. They need to invest a lot to retain lakhs of trusted customers who bought their vehicle. They are in the same situation Nokia mobiles where in when Samsung and Apple started their battle . Need to CHANGE quickly!!!
They tried a backdoor way to do this by “opening up” their proprietary charger to everyone, other companies can take advantage of the grid if they implement this type of charger. But if they make chargers of their own, Ather’s vehicles can also use it. Quid pro quo type of situation.
Ola updated their website with more details. Cruise control, Hill hold, and Voice assistant are available only in the S1 Pro variant. Remaining all the smart features are available in both variants. Both models come with a 750W charger and its portable.
Man, I am in love with that features list. I am waiting for my S1 pro. I hope they don’t mess up with the software experience like Ather. EVs without 2021 tech are straight boring.
I like how the S1 is speced, they have kept it on par with the S1 pro in charging speeds and kept the home charging time lower.
The 450+ was intentionally made so bad that any reconsidered the 450x, so that they can boast “in India a value product sells and the notation of a cheap product is wrong”. I bet if the range was at least on par with the 450, if not with the 450x, there would at least 30-40% people who would have been choosing the+ over the X. I took a test ride of the 450x from a owner, because apparently @abhishek.balaji couldn’t help me to get a extended test ride of 15-20kms against the shitty 1.5kms test ride they allow at the EC. The attitude of the guys at Mysore EC disappointed me and I am going to cancel both my bookings today.
I had requested the EC guys to cancel my first booking ago a month and they are so adamant and negligent they didn’t do it. After repeated requests, I didn’t get a test ride the reason told was demand, now what do you say @abhishek.balaji? Do you have test ride demands even now after ola kicking in? I wouldn’t take a test ride even if you offered it now, I am sold to Ola’s pricing and specs.
It is sad to see myself turning to a EV enthusiast seeing the early Ather 450 pricing and specs but now it isn’t the same - everything has changed. EC guys behavior, the overpriced scooter by 30k min and the useless subscription plans instead of the wifi tethering thing and not even able to get a proper test ride and I haven’t even have to mentioned the 450+ degrades over x having the same hardware and making it almost not a option to consider.
Considering many great 50-60kms if driven in eco on sport on the x in the + it will be much worse at 40-50kms and paying so much for a scooter that charges at a ’s speed at home (5+ hrs) and that range and that 1.3lakh price. I am DONE.
Ather has only 1GB of RAM and hence they are unable to implement maps with more cache also they are doing cloud computing due to which subscription model cameout. But OLA on other hand 3GB also they are doing edge computing hemce no subscription.
One more reason is also that OLA works with hotspot where as Ather wantedly restricted it. So even edge or cloud computing still there is a cost involved for SIM maintenance (Atleast 100 per month). Considering that vehicle sends data every second the payload will be more so cloud storage charges are also involved. Remove the restriction on wifi and ather can remove subscription (possible). As we all know there are lot of things ather restricted intentionally.
So OLA so software experience will be much more satisfactory and also they have years of experience in Analytics and also softwate development. One more advantage for OLA is the scale of production. High volumes definitely reduce the price. Additionally OLA is a established company so banks gave EMI option for it. Where as Ather is still struggling with that only two options.
One information we don’t have right now is how much historical data we get through OLA. For obvious reasons the ride statistics in Ather app were restricted to last 10 rides. Though we get monthly ride log it is a computed data and not the ride wies details. But they have the data though for study purposes. Giving more statistics to consumer increases the no of queries which indeed increases the cost. So if ghey have limited data to offer and full data to themselves there will be control.over cost.( This is based on my experience in IoT technologies in industrial front correct me if I am wrong open to know and correct myself).
Simple Energy plz don’t ask me I don’t have trust factor.
All the Hush-hush is good Ola has got a ton of features which I literally requested them before even launching the 450x, which they took in NON, ola also has come up with extreme good pricing, They are following the footsteps of JIO when it launched disturbed the entire market, right now the Jio is ola and Ather is airtel, everyone who has bought in 450x is looking at the new scooter and regrets, even me, considering I have a 450 and not 450x and thinking now that OLA might have been a better choice.
Let’s wait for the initial market and see how it goes, is my opinion, That’s the reason I never went for 450x and kept the 450 also covid, But still, so many features can be in the dashboard if Ather ditches its the current software development team and outsources it to some company who has years of experience in Dashboard and Andriod 450x can be saved
With such wonderful specs, I, like other friends who have commented on this forum, feel that its either time for Ather to react or close shop. Not only on the features, I have had frustrating experience with Ather’s support team. Recently had a puncture and got it fixed at road side, but still air was leaking as the nail had gone in some strange direction and the fix did not work. Since it was a tubeless tire, i tried calling Ather support. They kept me on hold. I started driving from virugambakkam to Ather EC, while still i was being put on hold. Finally got response from support team when I reached Ather EC, that was super fast response. They did not have tires in stock, nor they do not have equipment to replace the tire even i got them one. They removed the rear wheel and asked me to go to some tire shop and get the tire replaced. This is what they could do. For the first time in my vehicle ownership experience, I got this unique opportunity. Thoroughly dissatisfied with this. Leave alone the random dashboard restarts and no great connectivity features. With such support and EC experience (They did not bother to inform me on the offer that they had when I booked the vehicle, thats another story), people will soon move to better products. If you do not take care of your customer, someone else will.
Ah !! Typical ather experience. All of this is going to end soon. OLA and simple energy has given a tight slap on ather monopoly and i hope they do the same in terms of service.
I don’t see ola app listed in play store…I remember long time back when I had no ather, still I was able to search and install Ather app…of course I couldn’t go inside without signing up. But that feel of trying to checking out the app was so good…
Curiosity
I think we will need to get together to do something about how Ather is handling the software side of things, and putting everything behind a pay wall.
If a company truly cares about its early adopters, it should do something. Agreed, it might have been a surprise move, agreed it might take time, but Ather should do something REALLY drastic if it does not want trouble on its hands.
I have been deeply disappointed with their point updates on the software. I decided not to pay since it did not make sense for me to have such software features behind a paywall, especially after having paid such a premium.
’s speed at home (5+ hrs) and that range and that 1.3lakh price. I am DONE.