Guys, i still stay on same date. Ordered on Last month (Sept) and remains with Apr - Jun slot.
Not sure when i will be pushed back.
Its basically a very generic newsletter without any much detail about this sudden change of delivery schedule. The article shared is also dated July. If Ather knew about this supply chain issue then why this is being told at the last minute when the regular delivery is supposed to start by now (Oct mid as stated by Ather team earlier).
And no clear details on how and why its gonna turn around suddenly in December. whats the guarantee this will not get further postponed.
Most disheartening is the way this communication is handled by ather. People who have signed up here are the enthusiastic early adopters ones with lot of patience and they have done it keeping full faith in Ather and its transparency but now it seems being taken for granted.
Have burnt my fingers once previously as an early adopter with Plastc.inc and I really wish Ather comes out well and be professional hereon so that people can still keep their trust in the early adoption system. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Very much disappointing n true
Extremely disappointed at the 3 month push back of my delivery timeline, but I will remain patient.
@Shreyas. For heaven’s sake, please ensure you have a clear line of communication open wrt to delivery timeline.
While I am equally disappointed like many others here on delay, I am thinking how this could have been made better?
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Ather is known for transparency from day 1. However, from past couple of months, it has become like any other corporate company. I would have expected Ather to update its family (at least in this forum) on what is happening, a ticker on the rollout, a ticker on the number of bookings etc… This is how confidence is built and should have kept.
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While I am disappointed on delay, there is one point for which I am happy about it. I will have 2019 model than 2018
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Hi Folks,
I am Tarun, cofounder and CEO @Ather. It’s a huge bummer for us and your frustration is mirrored within our teams also. First my apologies for the delay - and a little bit more explanation:
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Electronics delay: We knew about the general electronics industry squeeze for the last several months however we did underestimate it’s impact at small volumes. We aggressively assumed that getting a few hundred components (specially by paying 10-20X extra) should be very easy because that is literally prototyping scale. However, we were caught in the middle of a really bad cycle and getting the entire component list of more than 400 line items proved too hard.
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Quality rejects: We estimated a quality challenge on our end while assembling and ordered 10% extra components to account for it. Most of our partner-vendors are fairly large companies with decades of experience so we estimated very few problems there. Unfortunately once regular production started we had a handful of components where our rejection rates were as high as 90%+ at the partner-vendor end itself. To be honest this did break our supply chain completely. It is very hard to recover from such a massive rejection rate in less than 2 months. And even if 400 components make on time, it literally takes just 1 partner to fail their commitment for the entire production to come to a halt.
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People: We under-estimated the # of people we will need to deploy in quality and supply-chain. We had a team of about 15 to work and coordinate 70 suppliers. This put enormous pressure when multiple failures happened in quality and electronics sourcing. We needed about 40 folks in these teams.
What are we doing now to fix this:
- We are working far far tighter with our electronics partners now. For the last 2 months we have had a team of 10 engineers + supply chain folks deployed there perennially to ensure that nothing fails quality and we are not surprised about delivery. Results have started to show and we are seeing decent output there now.
- We have dialed up our follow-ups here like crazy. Have been sending our engineers to every single partner-vendor to ensure that quality is ensured during their production runs itself and we are not surprised when the material reaches our plant. We have also started deploying our own quality engineers at their locations now.
- We have already doubled up the supply chain and quality teams and are adding about 15 more poeple in the next two months. This is the biggest lesson for us. As an org our focus has been on engineering and design for the longest time. It’s time we developed these muscles.
We feel super bad about this delay and our working on ways to catch-up on this in the next 3 months. Larger teams, better processes, more inventory - whatever it takes. We are hopeful that the delay will be contained largely to the next few months only.
This time, we are also going a little conservative in our projections to ensure that we have a shot at surprising you positively on the delivery date. That is why some of you are seeing a sudden push in the delivery date.
And many of you pointed this out - we were slow in our communication this time. Yes. We were slow because this delay was a completely new one to us and we were trying to fight it without completely understanding it. We have a better handle on it now and you will see us more active on this community and elsewhere now.
Once again, many many thanks for supporting us and being active here. That more than anything else is what really matters to us.
Tarun
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Appreciate taking time to write. This is what we need. Open communication is the key to win customers.
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Thank You @tarun for spending some time to discuss issues with us. Sometimes direct communication will resolve most of the issues and increase the strength and trust among us. All the best for ather teams for next few months millestones to achieve.
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Booking Jun 7 2018
Estimated Delivery date Oct 2018
Update 1: Estimated Delivery date Nov 2018
Update 2: Revised estimated delivery date Mar 2019
Not happy.
Ather team claims they are transparent, but also say that they do not have details if the Order Id are sequential.
Ather team wants customers to be patient and believe no one is being delivered on priority ie out of the current queue.
I am really not sure if this will be last updated delivery date 
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Hey Sangeeta,
Had shared some info on Order IDs in the past. While the delivery dates have changed, it’s in-line with what we had communicated earlier.
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Yes Shreyas. I have been closely following the forum and did read the update. Mine was the case of Sep-Nov batch which showed it as October delivery, later got pushed to November and now pushed to March.
What I forgot to add in my previous post was that the newsletter that I received said “The overall delay ranges between 1-3 months from the communicated timeline for a majority of our customers.” but I am part of those minority customers who got pushed from November to March ([1+3] 4 months).
The best part is when I called up the Ather Customer support team Dileep from customer support team of Ather mentioned that the newsletter’s 3 months delay is just Average. If that is the case I feel sorry for members (if any) who might see delay of more than 4 months.
Anyway this is fact and I cannot change it. I am just sharing the information which I happen to get from the Ather team.
@Shreyas Thanks for your quick response.
All I have known from this forum is that Ather has produced only 10 scooters until now. Does it mean production has completely stopped after producing 10 scooters…???
If Ather has problem in procuring components for their production, what about spares for after sales…???
If they have problem in procuring components for 1000 or 2000 scooters what kind of production will they be able to do…???
At this moment, to me it looks like, they are completely amateurish in their approach to production. If they do not hire well experienced production engineers to stabilize decent output of scooters everyday the company is bound to suffer huge losses and may reach a point of no return. I hope the Ather team instead of creating hype around their product should now seriously concentrate on decent product output.
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Its never to late to get back on your feet though we wont live forever make sure you accomplish what you were put here for us.
For myself
Everything comes at the right time, but if the right time is too late. let me be patient, for the best I can get.
Well wishers are with you
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It’s very disappointing to listen to such shocking information all of a sudden.
After waiting for 6 long months and when you almost thought you had the vehicle delivered, this is a really bad and an utter blunder from you guys.
Firstly there was no response by anybody from Ather despite the post had clear questions.
No doubt I felt really bad once I read the email about delay in delivery but this information was never communicated as many times as I called you guys on the support line over the past month.
I was assured and re assured that ‘Ather was on track with delivery slots’ and that the charging point assessment was in full swing despite me calling atleast 3 to 4 times in a week and wrong information communicating to us.
This sort of delay actually makes me think about after sales service and support as you only provide door to door and do not have a dedicated service centre other than the Ather space which does not deal with these issues.
Shreyas also mentioned that the delivery slots until November 2018 would not follow as per the order id, well it’ll be great if you could atleast communicate now, the order id’s that showed interest in Ather even before the booking started. This would make us all feel better and not keep waiting out of only curiosity.
I really wish not to see any apology email or a further deliver email in the future.
I can completely understand that each one of you have put in a lot of effort trying to marvel at what you have done, but a little more caution and better communication would make us encourage you more by the day.
Nevertheless, the support continues to be provided to Ather and I atleast hope I get a response to this post also, please keep us posted by this community of any and all updates that is happening.
Mine now moved from planned delivery of Nov-18 to expect to deliver during Jan-19.
When mine was around 15k on odo, I started following Ather. I expected that while reaching at 25k odo I could own one S340.
When my odo clocked 38k I think I had booked for 450. Now my odo has crossed 41k.
With the confirmed date of Nov-18, I thought no more care is required.
Now it’s time for me to again take my humble 90cc scooty for a thorough service. It may cost me ₹8k because of changing dampers front and back, clutch service, brake service etc., It also started drinking lube of 500ml every 1k KM’s.
It can’t Wade in water logged roads. But on reliability, I am on time at office with its not so great engine. It runs 50km per litre and my daily run is 30kms.
I know what is meant to be reliable is.
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Hello Team Ather,
First of all Brilliant Job in making this scooter and presenting in the market which is completely new.
I like the idea of creating forum to discuss about the vehicles and updates.
I understand you had given delivery dates working on lot of Data (which is not easy).
sometimes calculations go wrong its okay.
Appreciate that you have taken time to explain to the Forum the reason for delay. I completely understand what you are going through.
At this Movement you are looking into lot of things. I know the amount of effort you have put in and still putting to get the vehicle on road (don’t worry it will happen)
You have taken excellent decisions till now so stay with that. no problem if there is delay in the delivery. once you deliver quality product nobody can take you out of the market.
Better to deliver excellent product at once instead of rework later.
Don’t lose your confidence you are doing excellent job. I was there since the beginning and will be there with you to support
concentrate on the things that need to be done. take your time think and give a good product.
All the Best and Good Luck
Chethan
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I can only just accept the fact of reliability issue. Don’t know whether showing frustration will either make someone to get more responsible or solve their problems.
I am also in an industry where we rely on global supply chain. People have really messed up with high end electronic to simple sheet works.
Worst thing is everything is compartmentalized. Like a flower plant inside the pot. Interfacing is not just the responsibility of integration. Every compartmental work should take feedback on their own.
@Shreyas shame on you guys for being so bad in communicating. This is definitely not expected from Ather.
After so many follow-ups got an update that the delivery postponed to Dec from October.
Your team should be proactive henceforth.
Is it believable that Ather had components to produce only 10 scooters and they started their production line to build only 10 scooters and shut it down for want of components ? What kind of production planning is this ? 10 scooters can be assembled in an ordinary workshop. It does not require production line. Their is something more to it than what Ather team is putting out its side of story for the delay.
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I agree with @c_s_harish , there is definitely something else. It’s better you guys be honest and be upfront on actual reasons for the delay.This community will understand and support for sure.