India is often said to be a sleeping giant when it comes to electric vehicles. In those early years, where manufacturers are still defining their products and strategies for India, Ather Energy has already started shipping their scooters and has thousands of other pre-orders. We recently had the opportunity to examine the Ather 450 and understand how it became the poster child for the Indian electric vehicle movement.
India as a market for electric vehicles
There is no doubt that electric vehicles will replace ICEs (Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles) in the future. However, adoption has been quite slow. A recent Bloomberg study found that India has only 8,000 electric cars on the roads, a small number considering the country's 1.3 billion people.
This slowness is due to many reasons: inadequate charging infrastructure, high battery production costs, relatively higher start-up costs, and lower mileage. Real government efforts to promote electric vehicles have only recently begun, but it is a reminder that the few companies that are committed to this future take enormous risks by adopting them early.
Manufacturing electric vehicles is not cheap. They require completely different assembly lines, different drive groups have to be developed, and component production has not yet reached a feasible scale that reduces costs. R&D will also have to start from scratch, and specialized knowledge and skills are still in their development stage. For a price sensitive market like India, these factors make EV sales even more difficult.
(Image credit: Ather Energy)
What is the difference between Ather Energy?
Ather Energy was one of the first electric motor car manufacturers in India when it was commissioned in 2013. However, just a year ago, in September 2018, Ather 450 started its deliveries. All these years have been used to develop a vehicle not only comparable to what people are used to, but also to add a layer of intelligent software that keeps everything in order and improves over time.
The market will soon offer many EV offerings, but our native software integration will set Ather apart from any other competitor.
Swapnil Jain, Co-founder, Ather Energy"Traditional automakers have a very mechanical view of cars," says Co-founder Swapnil Jain. "But at Ather, the team is made up of engineers and designers from various disciplines, such as products, mechanics, software, communications, etc."
Electric vehicles are more advanced computers than cars inside. This is especially true for the Ather 450 because all devices, including the headlights, speakers, and speakers, are controlled by software. Almost all basic functions have a code that saves them. This may seem unnecessary at first glance, but it means that everything can be monitored, customized, corrected, and therefore improved through OTA updates.
Here is a growing list of features that were not initially present on the Ather 450 scooter, but have gained over time:
- Automatic brightness on the digital board.
- On-board diagnostics
- Different driving modes (Sport, Ride, Eco)
- Riding statistics
- Select multiple routes for onboard GPS
- Reduced fan noise
All of these items, as well as a few others, were added later, reminding us of future possibilities. All of these can also interact with the Ather app on your phone.
The Ather 450 has 46 built-in sensors that monitor all essential components like battery and thermal status, motors, GPS, driving habits, charging habits, etc. Each of these sensors communicates with the cloud, providing them with specific information in real time, helping to reduce errors faster than ever. Predictive maintenance information and driving statistics are provided to drivers so they know how to improve and get the most out of their vehicles. "It also gives us data to iterate faster on our products and contributes greatly to rapid product development."
We asked how location tracking works and what consumers think about it. They explained that some riders were justifiably concerned that their location would be tracked, but it works in such a way that the scooter's live location is not displayed or monitored at all times. Instead, it is stored and converted to a format that makes data decryption easy. But for consumers who are still concerned, there is also an "incognito mode" that can be changed, which prevents sharing of location data.
How Ather Energy builds a "constantly improving vehicle"
(Image credit: Ather Energy)
A smart charging network
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Inside outer space
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Ather Grid
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After this discussion, we headed to the Ather Space, a flagship experience center in the heart of Bangalore, to test the 450 for ourselves and learn more about some of the other features and enhancements. When Ather was founded, pre-orders were mostly on their website. This store has been an additional point of contact for consumers, allowing them to test vehicles, understand the underlying technology and get immediate answers to all their questions. It is also one of 36 Ather Grid slot machines that offers free and fast loading to the public.
The Ather Grid network was brilliant. We often hear that the lack of charging infrastructure discourages customers from purchasing electric vehicles. This is Ather's well-executed answer. These are essentially charging points that any electric vehicle can use for free (until the end of this year). These are also connected to the cloud and must authenticate your vehicle before charging begins. The power supply will also automatically shut down to avoid overcharging the battery. Ather has kept it available for all electric vehicles and has two Mahindra cars that frequently visit the network.
It is interesting to note that only around 5% of charging is done at these charging stations, most of it is done at home at night. This is likely to change once more as 450 will be on the roads. Distance-related anxiety is often always a talking point when EVs and charging infrastructure are discussed, but again, Ather has used the data to find the most realistic solution.
(Image credit: Ather Energy)
The average distance traveled by an Ather 450 per day is 20.9 km, well below the maximum range of almost 100 km. This meant that most users probably wouldn't have to charge their fees on a daily basis. More importantly, Ather is asking users to recharge their scooters overnight and hope it becomes a habit for electric vehicles. The scooter is smart enough to know when to stop charging to avoid overcharging the batteries.
We asked if this regular charging is a healthy habit, as it increases the number of charging cycles used. The solution, once again backed by data, was pretty smart. The Ather 450 has a 2.4 kWh battery; however, the load is limited to 95% at the top and 5% at the bottom. Lithium ion batteries inherently lose their ability to charge faster when taken from 0 to full charge. By limiting the range, the number of charge cycles increases by more than two times.
Based on route data acquired by Ather, a 90% range is the best compromise for runners to ensure battery life without drastically reducing battery life. Technically speaking, an 80% range by limiting the battery from 10% to 90% would give the battery conditions (almost 5 times more than between 0 and 100%), but the reduction in range would be too great for most the cyclists. But that could theoretically be an option in the future.
(Image credit: Ather Energy)
Ather 450 initial impressions
After understanding the technology that makes the Ather 450 so smart, it was time to test its appearance. Our first, non-technical, impression revealed some interesting features that seemed so obvious at first, but rare to find on two-wheelers.
There is no direct electrical switch to start the bike. It must be "manually slid to start engine" on the digital dash, after which a large tag persists at the top, informing the racer of the condition of the engine. Since electric vehicles do not make noise or vibrate when starting, it can be dangerous if a driver climbs in without knowing whether the engine is on or off.
There is also an inverted "parking aid" mode, which slowly moves the scooter backwards. Currently, no other two-wheeler offers this and it can save your life if you park your vehicle on a slope or get stuck in a pothole.
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Ather 450 chassis with battery in the base
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Digital dashboard showing engine status and expected range
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We quickly switched to Sport mode to get an idea of what the 450 was capable of, and the engine torque was incredible. If you've never driven an electric vehicle, the acceleration will baffle you. In a few seconds, we could go from slow cruising speed to full speed to overtake others without putting the engine to the test. The only notable limitation was the increase in engine noise, but we were told that it was the cooling fan that was revving up to keep the rest of the internal thermals under control and not the engine noise.
When clients return from a test run at Ather Space, they are greeted by a data visualization that shows a ton of information on their short journey. Basic notions like total distance, maximum speed and average mileage, more complex things like the most effective 100m trajectory, gradability, inertia and the force with which you supported yourself while turning are explained. Again, this data is stored in the Ather cloud to better understand driving patterns, and no, it is not always viewed and studied by individuals. In addition to these test runs, they are in a more compact data format that cannot be directly deduced.
Travel data from my test drive. The bright green dot on the left indicates the most effective part of the trip.
(Image credit: future)
Back in the office, they also shared data on driving patterns preferred by the current generation of Ather owners so that they could eventually create additional driving patterns, which can be a mix of sprint and cruise, or whatever users seem to prefer. For example, 55% of trips are in driving mode and 28% use sport mode only, the rest is a mixed bag. It could be used to add another riding mode, which allows the scooter to take short bursts at high speed and return to normal cruising speeds for better range.
(Image credit: future)
The future of mobility.
Although consumers can lower their fuel costs, Swapnil believes it will be much more useful in B2B scenarios where vehicles are more likely to reach their maximum self-sufficiency more regularly, increasing savings. Use cases can include package or food delivery, roundtrip, and vehicle rental. Bounce, the world's fastest growing new bike share company, is also in talks with Ather as they work to electrify their fleet.
The future of mobility must have four main characteristics. Known as CASO, the vehicles of the future will be:
- Connected - Vehicles will communicate with each other, the cloud, GPS satellites, and other parties involved in the journey.
- Autonomous: still a few years from now, vehicles will one day go from point A to point B alone, requiring a minimum of human interjection.
- Sharing: With the costs of owning a vehicle rising and sales falling, a share / rent model makes more sense when you can choose the vehicle where you want it and send it back at the end.
- Electric: Moving away from fossil fuels will be an inevitable shift that will dominate the automotive sector for years to come. Regardless of the emissions perspective, they are simply better performing vehicles in almost every field. Once the battery density is improved with technology, even the last hurdle in the range will disappear.
Given this, innovative automakers like Tesla Motors and Ather Energy are better positioned to succeed in the future and extend their leadership over other companies just beginning their electric journey. It is not just about what these vehicles can do today, but what they will be able to do in the future.