[amarprusty]

Checkout Hero Electric,Ampere & Okinawa Electric Scooters also however Cities have to go Electric and save air pollution which shall be a major killer in future with lungs getting damaged

[GrandTourer]

Guys, had anyone come across this new brand of eScooter, Etergo? Apparently they claim a range of 240km on over charge. Way more than Ather.
If yes, how does it compare with Ather overall?

[null]

Its time for the government to come up with standards to enable to e-charging / battery swapping setups across in major cities to make it happen.

A key point that need to be addressed is coming up with a "Standardization of EMV batteries specifications" to enable easy battery swap across the models being manufactured. With the battery format (aka dimensions & capacities) standardized & all e-bike companies mandated to follow these guidelines, this will give the boost for setting up battery swap facilities which will address a major pain point in this eco system.

[samaspire]

Originally Posted by null

A key point that need to be addressed is coming up with a "Standardization of EMV batteries specifications" to enable easy battery swap across the models being manufactured. With the battery format (aka dimensions & capacities) standardized & all e-bike companies mandated to follow these guidelines, this will give the boost for setting up battery swap facilities which will address a major pain point in this eco system.

Batteries are the major differentiator in this war for the EVs. If that is standardized now, then where will the innovation come from? In future - yes.

What should be standardized now is the charging plug point. Ideally all batteries should be chargeable with the regular home 5V/16V plug point. Once that happens, there is no need for any new charging infrastructure. It's already available everywhere.

[aargee]

Originally Posted by GrandTourer

Guys, had anyone come across this new brand of eScooter, Etergo? Apparently they claim a range of 240km on over charge. Way more than Ather.
If yes, how does it compare with Ather overall?

It's sold in EU, no point comparing it with Ather when Ather is not sold in EU or Etergo in India

[GrandTourer]

Originally Posted by aargee

It's sold in EU, no point comparing it with Ather when Ather is not sold in EU or Etergo in India

Oh, I see. I have been getting a lot of Facebook ads about it, although I have never accessed any content related to this. So I thought maybe it's a new brand coming up in India.

Thanks for letting me know.

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by GrandTourer

Guys, had anyone come across this new brand of eScooter, Etergo? Apparently they claim a range of 240km on over charge. Way more than Ather.
If yes, how does it compare with Ather overall?

Etergo Appscooter is not available in India. It's available for pre-order only in Netherlands for now. deliveries start next year and the pre-ordering amount is 300 euros I guess. The scooter looks really cool with a retro styling I felt.

Etergo Appsooter's USP is that it contains 3 battery modules and we can use 1 to 3 together or individually. The modules is designed to be carried like a backpack and charged at home. Each module weighs 7.5kilos. This gives good freedom to the user. They can run with one module while the other is charging, they can run will all 3 together for those long rides. Additional battery modules cost around 800 euros!

Etergo claims that each battery module gives a range 80kms. Important thing to note here is that this range is achieved at test conditions at a constant speed of 20kmph. ARAI certified Range of Ather 450 is 107kms for IDC but the true range is 75kms in Eco mode. I myself have extracted 100+kms in real world conditions driving at around 40kmph. I estimate that driving at a constant 20kmph, ather will give in excess of 120kms range.

Each battery module is 1.15kwh capacity while Ather's battery is 2.7kwh.
There are 3 variants in Etergo, a 2kw motor version that includes only 1 battery module, a 4kw with 2 modules and a 7kw with 3 modules included.
The 2kw version can go upto 50kmph the the 4kw version can reach 70kmph and the highest variant reaches a top speed of 95kmph. Ather's top speed is 90kmph
The physical dimensions, construction and also the performance are pretty much similar to Ather's. Where the Appscooter is different is the dashboard which is more like a media player than just a scooter instrument cluster. It runs on android and is capable of pairing with android and ios devices. It comes with bluetooth, wifi using which we can stream audio, pair for navigation etc. It comes with 4G geofencing features. Price seems too high for me. one other thing is that they advertise that it fits a full beer crate in it's 50L boot.

[jaganm]

Coming on close to 6 months with this scooter and I have completed 3000 km. I honestly can say that this has spoilt normal ICE scooters for me. The performance, stability, lack of noise and vibration is just exceptional. The other thing which impresses me is that everything remains as well put together as on day one unlike many other electric scooters which seem like toys and you feel that the plastic bits are literally going to fall off anytime.

The irritants still remain, I have reconciled to all except the stand. A very common problem is that someone will park to the right and assume that there is enough gap. But given how much it leans, when you make it even, you literally have 0 space for your right foot. That is extremely irritating.

[m8002?]

Saw this in LinkedIn and it think this is really cool way to charge your scooter.
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/andri...449150977-sNyx

If this charging module is installed in good number of petrol stations, it becomes as good as petrol.

[am1m]

So with TN announcing a 100% rebate on road tax for EVs, will Ather prices drop further in Chennai soon?

Getting closer to ICE-scooter pricing then? Ultimately that is what will push EV adoption rates more than anything else.

[Nithesh_M]

Ather says it no longer sells the 340 anymore as 99% of their customers bought the 450. Announced on their facebook page.

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?sto...cus_composer=0

[hemanth.anand]

Originally Posted by Nithesh_M

Ather says it no longer sells the 340 anymore as 99% of their customers bought the 450.

Yes, we owners got an email about this information some days ago. The Ather 340 is discontinued with immediate effect. As per Ather, the 340 was only 2% of orders in Bengaluru and less than 1% in Chennai. Fairly so, I'm surprised who were those 2% who booked that because from the small incremental cost, the 450 is a huge difference in performance and overall value for money. With GST reduction on EVs (12% to 5%) and increased FAME 2 subsidy, Ather 450 is an even more better priced.

Ather says that all the people who have pre-ordered a 340 will have the option to upgrade to the 450.

I like the the way Ather puts out information on various social media platforms and their website and forum. Some creative graphic designers they have. This 340 discontinuation information was no different. See these images from their forum and Facebook

[hemanth.anand]

This post covers some updates about Ather from the last month.

FORUM

On August 4th 2019, it was the first anniversary of Ather forum! On that Occasion Ather promoted two members...two Ather 450 owners, as moderators. One of them was your truly! They said that a forum like theirs should have active and equal ownership by Owners.

The selection was based on the fact that both of us were one of the oldest owners and know about the product to a fair extent. In my introduction they wrote the following

hemanth.anand is an active BHPian and will be able to help with some best practices from there.

Thank you Team-BHP!.

It has given me an opportunity to see the back-stage things of a community and have a little say in how the community can be organised. I liked the fact that they have given us good freedom as moderators and the discussions are objective and professional. A Manufacturer doing this with customers who otherwise are no way related to them is worth appreciating.

OWNERS' MEET

On August 25th, Ather also organised a owner's ride & meet...their third such meet. By that time they had delivered more than 1000 Athers and hence the attendance was expected to be high. 200+ owners had registered and finally 150+ attended.
Because of this high number Ather planned rides from 4 different parts of the city and each part was lead by one of the owners. The two of us moderators were the leads for the south wing. We were around 12 from this side. All 4 groups converged near their office and rode together to the venue.

It was a nicely organised event. In the meet they formally introduced us moderators to the gathering. They introduced the new Ather Dot charger (more on the Dot is here), they informed that the next city is going to be Hyderabad and finally they gave information about the things that'll come in the next OTA update which will come in September. A few owners shared their Chennai trip experience. It was followed by a Q&A session and Lunch.


The vehicles lined together


The Hall


The Audience


Owners speak

Couple of other things...
Owners got an opportunity to ride scooters with the new upcoming mode-ECO mode.
Ather had made small info-cards...Interested people could take a few of those cards. There basically contains link to their websites and a small explanation of what is Ather. This was picked up from an owner who told that he was tired of answering people on road for questions about Ather. Nice way of marketing!

Ather made a small video of the event:

http://youtu.be/LzFUGG5UqIU

MOBILE APP

A new version of the app was released. The two major changes in the new version are the capability of push notifications and a new animation for vehicle charging. Teh push notification gives info if there is a new OTA update for the vehicle. Probably later they'll also start charge status notification. Regarding the animation, I preferred the looks of the older one.


New Charging Animation on the app

OTA UPDATE

Ather rolled out their next OTA update two days ago.The update process was just like the previous times. Last time, some people had downloading issues because of poor connectivity and the big update size, but this time there were none reported.

The third riding mode - The Eco mode - is introduced. The top speed in this mode is 50 kmph while the TrueRange (what you’ll see on the dashboard at 100% charge) is 75 km. It is for those rare days when someone needs to go that extra distance or make an unplanned detour. It's boring for me, but a good compromise for additional range


The three modes


The Eco mode screen with 75kms Truerange

Another small change in this update is that while charging is in progress, we can see the percentage number inside the progress bar on the dashboard.


percentage number

Motor fan noise reduction - Earlier, the motor fan (that cools the motor) would run at full speed when turned on. With this update, the motor fan speed will be gradually increased to cool the motor when the temperature goes above a threshold, thereby optimizing for the noise.

In the Owners’ Meet, they had spoken about a few more features and enhancements that were supposed to be a part of this update. However, due to some pending development and testing, they said they will release another update in the next few weeks. Essentially they've split the update into two. This splitting has also ensured that Bengaluru owners receive the Eco mode before Chennai deliveries begin.

ISSUES & PROBLEMS
1. After the latest update some users have complained about the touchscreen not working.

2. A couple of users have faced an issue with their scooters not starting suddenly one morning. Ather had taken the scooters to their office and diagnosed this to some issue with the BMS and working to find the root cause. The users had got loner vehicels till the vehicles were returned.

3. Due to some quality issue at the factory, deliveries have been delayed by around 10 days. People who had booked in July and August (including Chennai) were given a delivery estimate of September but it's now pushed to October.

[Hells Bells]

Hi all,

I have booked a 450 today and expected delivery date is around Dec/Jan. While this is the first electric vehicle me and my wife have explored, we went ahead with the booking to get ourselves in the queue.

However, I am keen to get a feedback on other electric scooters too on our market. While exploring Hero Electric website, I see this whole list of scooter variants they have with them. A quick check on review videos on those scooters gives me an impression that these appear to be rebadged Chinese OEM scooters but I couldn't get any confirmation otherwise.

Anyone has a view on at least Hero Electric but also on other legitimate (and in for the long run) e-scooter manufacturers?

Cheers

[shashank.nk]

Originally Posted by Hells Bells

I have booked a 450 today and expected delivery date is around Dec/Jan. While this is the first electric vehicle me and my wife have explored, we went ahead with the booking to get ourselves in the queue.

Anyone has a view on at least Hero Electric but also on other legitimate (and in for the long run) e-scooter manufacturers?

I've booked one on 21st and my expected delivery date Jan/Feb 2020. I presume you booked in Bangalore too?

However, until yesterday it was showing info about home charging point, but now I can see a 'keep your documents ready' status.

Along with hero, I considered okinawa as well before deciding on Ather, It appears most are indeed re-badged chinese scooters. As of now Ather seems to have the least problems of all the scooters, only in the next 3+ years do I expect a true competitor to hit the market.