Partnership with Hero

Ather Grid, Accessories and more
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I have always wondered why Ather is not using hero’s network in smaller cities to expand… if I am not wrong hero has some 30% stake in Ather… why not use the showroom in smaller cities like mine - Mangalore.

Experience center is great in metros but in a small city, sales may not be as great because of the initial cost of the scooter… hero electric range is low end… won’t it be good for both if they partner in tire 2 and 3 cities? There cannot be cross selling because both are different price bracket

Most of the regular service can be handled by them anything major, parts will be replaced anyways… I don’t see any special skill need…

If you look at me as a customer, I am willing to buy but cannot… isn’t it a lost opportunity? Tomorrow if Ola comes up with a bit inferior product pan India… I would still consider it because of availability…

Now if I could buy 450x from hero showroom, that would be a game changer…

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The partnership b/w heromotocorp and ather is only interms of financials not on the technology side. So basically if they had to use the existing network there has to be lot of knowledge sharing and their partnership is not on that ground. Ather wants to have its own brand rather than being a sister firm to heromotocorp.

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It’s funny how you assume that the OLA electric scooter will be available to you even though we know next to nothing about the scooter.

Hero electric and hero motocorp are very very different. Hero electric has nothing to do with Ather. Hero motocorp doesn’t have an EV yet. But they might in the future and it might be competitive. But I remember @tarun saying they might in the future explore that network but as of now hero motocorp is only a capital investor.

I think Ather is trying to keep everything inhouse to avoid any 3rd party services from popping up.

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I appreciate your response and the leadership of @tarun.

In my city Hero showroom must be selling Hero electric scooters so I assumed they are same parent. I still believe there is some connect else Hero wouldn’t let them use the name.

The Ola scooter was just a example because every other electric scooter is sub standard compared to Ather. Okinawa, Benling, etc. are other manufactures who has shroom in my city but comparing with Ather is not fair.

Since Ather will be niche a product, sales of that will not be like in Metros. Example Triumph motorcycles are high priced, high performance vehicles, they had a showroom in my city, now its closed because of lack of sales.

I like all the features of Ather but in a small city, we dont need google maps because its just too small to get lost. We may not need ather grid as we can charge overnight. There is no practical reason to travel more than 70 kms in the city in a day. With all those in mind, opening a full blown Experience center and selling couple of scooters a month may not be exciting from a business point of view.

Let me tell you my dilemma, I will need a scooter 3 months from now. Though I had pre-ordered last year, I don’t think I will get any time soon. When the lockdown started, like many; I too moved to my hometown. I could possibly buy from Bangalore and transport it myself and take a bit of a risk. I also have a KTM RC 390 which I transported using Aggarwal packers and when I received, I saw that the side stand was broken! Aggarwal was supposed to be one of the best and my bike has no main stand! Lucky for me I could take it to near by KTM showroom and change the stand in 30 mins… Imagine that with Ather 450x, I will be screwed and will have to transport back again…

If Ather has tie-ups with the likes of VRL (for cage transport), people like me could take a bit of risk and make the leap else we will have to look at alternatives

I also own a electric cycle from a Mysore based startup which gives me a range of 65 kms on pedal assist and I never had any issue in last 7500 kms but when I need to change regular serviceable stuff like change tire, replace gear cassette component, brake pads etc., I can go to any reputed cycle shop and get the work done. Here I took a risk and got rewarded by it. I don’t know if I should take such a risk with a electric scooter as mechanically they are complex

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It’s not about letting. It’s 2 brothers and who don’t like each other or something, not sure. But ya they are completely different. In your city one dealer might have taken both delearships.

Interesting, it’s something @tarun @swapniljain should consider. What you’re saying makes sense. A dumbed down version of the 450 would be ideal for tire 3& 4 cities. Maybe they are working on another 450 platform product. Have to wait and watch.

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Ather340? :grin:

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Lol there’s no value of this naming anymore. The 340 had a 3.4kW motor and the 450 had 4.5kW motor I think. That’s why they were named that way? But with the 450X I guess they threw that naming out. And just named it the 450 platform completely forgetting that this was originally the S340 platform :stuck_out_tongue:

More like a 450r or 450 lite or 450e
I hope they bring a cheaper version on the 450 platform itself. And not some new one. Because then it might happen sooner :person_shrugging:

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I second that, Machine learning with Connected tech has a place in metro for sure. I don’t know how much Ather uses AI but to take it a bit extreme, Using Google API and Traffic data; when a scooter is traveling in say Silk Board junction in peak traffic around 8 to 10, Ather could dynamically “increase regen, increase torque and reduce top speed” for efficiency and if traveling on the New airport road, “switch off regen, increase top speed and reduce torque”… If Ather had some kind of “Tire inflation system” then on Airport road it could inflate tire by 3-4 psi to increase range and deflate 2-3 psi in traffic to improve road grip… machine learning has a lot of scope… If there is a major power cut in Bangalore, they would even limit the top speed to 45 kmph to increase range to get people safely home like how Tesla did in Hurricane Irma

but in Tire 2-3 city, the range would not vary much… traffic wont be that bad nor will we have express lanes… only predictive algorithm would be the accurate range which with 10% variance can be lived with for 30k discount :wink: