[navpreet318]

What I'd be interested in is that is Bajaj offering these kind of subscription plans?

Also what I'm disappointed in is that if you're offering all the hardware, what is the point of reducing the features/performance based on subscription plans or the different one time payment options?

Why? Just Why? You've already put in the value addition!
Next someone will jailbreak the software I believe!

This is something I believe is not correct. It's like a Kawasaki offering just one bike-the ZX-10R and based on the price one has paid, the bike will either run as a 400 or a 600 or 1000!

[sj_koova]

For cancellation you have to call them. Did anyone cancel today?
And delivery starting in July. Seriously all these drama of pre-booking and hype for no good reason.

Ather got too optimistic and greedy!

[sri_tesla]

Originally Posted by sj_koova

For cancellation you have to call them. Did anyone cancel today?

I am able to cancel it by calling. You just need to call them. They will ask for the reason for cancellation. After that, they will ask to wait for a few minutes. In my case, after 2-3 minutes he replied saying "your order canceled". I also got the confirmation mail from Ather and refund initiation mail from Payment Gateway (Razor Pay) after a few minutes. It was a smooth process.

[rascalangel]

One day and what a contrast in launches. On one side TATA is making the Chinese and the Koreans sweat, on the other end Ather blew a huge lead in the market.

30K increase over 450 for the same performance figures for the 450X plus? Crazy! even more so when you dont get any benefit of the improved parts and components. I so dont get the logic, unless the regular 450 is being discontinued soon.But then again 30k? its like they want to fund the new factory expansion from the bikes they sell. and on top 10K extra for a few seconds less in the sprints? What HS!.

They have ended up making Bajaj look way more VFM than it already was. Rajiv Bajaj must have had a great day yesterday.Make no mistake, i have been rooting for Ather since the days when it was an unknown startup. Been following their every milestone but today i was left disappointed.

The update was incremental at best, but the pricing was SUPER [Sarcasm].

[Newpunter]

I was invited by Ather to be part of the launch in Delhi, so I watched the unveil at the Lalit in Delhi yesterday. I was so excited about the 450X and was planning to upgrade my 450, but after the price reveal, I'm thinking of canceling.

I had asked Tarun yesterday during the Q&A, what was the value proposition in expecting customers to pay 2K per month after paying more than a normal ICE scooter initially. He said something about not able to sell an Apple product at the price of a Samsung, which makes me think that Ather completely overestimated what customers in India are willing to pay for their product.

A few points and clarifications :

1. The Plus and Pro are the same scooter with different mappings. So if the scooter is slower in the Plus mode, I'm not sure why the range is lower. If anything, the range should be higher since the scooter would be using a lower amount of power. I feel that Ather is trying to make the Plus mode as unattractive as possible, so that people would choose the Pro mode (a bit like how Apple does with the lower end model, forcing people to buy the more costlier version). Ather did the same thing with the 340 and 450, so I think Ather will discontinue the Plus mode after a few months, citing lack of interest.

2. Tarun confirmed that the Pro mode includes the Ather One subscription plan, so I'm assuming the Plus mode includes only the Ather Data subscription, meaning that there would be no free public fast charging, and no reimbursement of your electricity bill, and probably no free servicing, if you choose the Plus mode.

3. I read an earlier user saying that he could use the Pro mode and his dad could use the Plus mode. It doesn't work like that. If you pay for the Plus mode, you will only get the Plus mode for that month. You could switch to the Pro mode the following month, by paying the extra money. Instead you could probably use the Warp mode and your dad could use the Economy or Ride modes.

4. The Sports mode is gone now and has been replaced with the Warp mode, which is a little bit faster (and probably uses up battery even more).

5. The infinite battery warranty only works if you are infinitely paying for the subscription. The moment you stop paying the subscription, the warranty will revert back to the 3 year warranty. However, let's say you are planning to replace the battery after 4 years. By this time, you would have paid 96000 in subscription fees to Ather, so if you had bought the scooter outright for 160K, you would have saved around 36K which can be used for a new battery (I'm sure battery prices would have come down by that time). Besides, Ather hasn't said at what point do they consider that the battery degradation is worse enough for them to replace the battery, so the infinite battery warranty just seems to be a catch phrase for now.

6. Assuming you bought an ICE scooter for around 90K, and the price of petrol is around 90Rs, and a mileage of 30 kmpl, you would need to ride around 700Kms a month to spend 2000Rs on fuel. The economics didn't make much sense for the 450 either, but for the 450X, they are insane.

I will post a few pics and more thoughts later .

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Newpunter

He said something about not able to sell an Apple product at the price of a Samsung, which makes me think that Ather completely overestimated what customers in India are willing to pay for their product.

Startup CEOs (whether Indian or global) spend way too much time thinking & imitating Steve Jobs & Elon Musk.

The 450X is overpriced, without doubt. The only way they'll learn a lesson is via customer response.

[DarthVeda]

He said something about not able to sell an Apple product at the price of a Samsung

either he's being cocky or just plain dumb. I am not sure whether he means samsung products are inferior to apple or that apple is overly priced and he's reduced that cost and giving it at samsung prices?
you created an upgrade, which has some performance updates, you added new gizmos..great! you want to increase the price of the new scooter, yes sure, go ahead! But to increase it by roughly 40% for such minor tweaks and then to have audacity to say you need subscription for us to operate it, is just plain arrogance and stupidity.

In his presentation, Tarun said he doesn't want to create models like mobile companies and introduced variants and next he went and did it anyway.
Tarun also said battery doesn't degrade like mobile and lasts for 5 years or so, but then next he starts off with a subscription which bleeds like a dialysis center does to a patient.
His partner in crime goes off saying "Our primary target here is not people who are doing long term ownership"!!
Have you mistaken EV owners for mobile owners?

[AnniHilat0R]

Another factor which made me cancel my pre-order apart from the insane pricing was the timeline. Q3 this year, the way the EV landscape is and could potentially be evolving, for the product delivery timeline to be almost 6 to 7 months from now, a lot of players and products might be available within the space to choose from.

[Ketan T]

Originally Posted by GTO

The 450X is overpriced, without doubt. The only way they'll learn a lesson is via customer response.

Ather has a very active forum. I have pre-booked 450X. The way people are commenting on the Ather forum, Ather will definitely know what the customer response is. Lot of people have cancelled their orders. I haven't cancelled my booking yet. Maybe Ather will make some amends to the ridiculous subscription plans.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Newpunter

He said something about not able to sell an Apple product at the price of a Samsung,

Wow, such arrogance!

But thanks Ather- Samsung (or in this case I guess it'll be Bajaj!) has worked just fine for me so far. I really don't want to pay a premium for a product and find that it needs it's own connectors to charge, to interface, etc etc. Especially when the 'Samsungs' do the same job just fine!

(And I am (or rather, used to be) a huge fan of what Ather was doing, pity.)

[Zappex]

I hope Ather reacts in time, the Indian market isn’t forgiving. Overpriced products end up like duds, no price correction can save the initial enthusiasm dying out.

The presentation was done well, the incremental nature of updates was on point. But where it all went wrong was the perception of the top management. I remember the CEO saying that customers will pay more.

A ₹15k price hike considering 75% localisation of the product would have been digestible, and allowed them to grow. This is a clear example of a company losing touch with reality in the boardrooms. The new factory investments and projections that they showcased yesterday did not reflect a realistic approach for growth.

Let’s not miss out on the fact that the 450x is a half baked product. The review PowerDrift released on YouTube talks about that. The weight distribution has changed and a lot of stuff needs to be sorted out before final production.

I have closely followed Ather and believed that a company who is receptive of consumer feedback and talks about analysing data will not get caught off guard. Positive reviews have made them overestimate the perceived value, people will vote with their money. I wanted to support them but they got greedy and with a heavy heart I have cancelled my booking.

[shashank.nk]

Originally Posted by GTO

The 450X is overpriced, without doubt. The only way they'll learn a lesson is via customer response.

Originally Posted by Ketan T

Lot of people have cancelled their orders. I haven't cancelled my booking yet. Maybe Ather will make some amends to the ridiculous subscription plans.

Ather seems to have realized their mistake thanks to the backlash from customers and is considering corrections.

I called a few mins ago to change back to regular 450 booking from the 450x as I found the 450x to be very expensive for my use case and the customer rep told me to wait a week or so as Ather will be updating BOTH scooter price as well as the grossly overpriced subscription plans.

So I've decided to hold on for now and later cancel both or continue with one depending on what Ather's future plans are.

PS-Lots of rumors going around that production of Ather 450 will be halted in the coming months and Ather would only focus on 450x going forward. Can someone who attended the unveil or with access to insider info confirm if this is true or not ?

[Newpunter]

Originally Posted by shashank.nk

PS-Lots of rumors going around that production of Ather 450 will be halted in the coming months and Ather would only focus on 450x going forward. Can someone who attended the unveil or with access to insider info confirm if this is true or not ?

Yes, they did announce during the presentation that the production of the Ather 450 would be stopped and the 450x will be the only model available. I have a feeling that a lot of people will try to book the 450 before they stop taking orders on it. The 450 feels very value for money, with the launch of the 450x .

[navpreet318]

I actually now foresee Bajaj putting out beautiful visual advertisements with Humara Bajaj Song playing in the background and people lining up at their dealerships. That is what will happen very soon. Bajaj have a winner in their hands now and it would take a monumental amount of stupidity to screw up this scooter for Bajaj. Hope they don't try to actually do that!

[Red Liner]

Originally Posted by navpreet318

I actually now foresee Bajaj putting out beautiful visual advertisements with Humara Bajaj Song playing in the background and people lining up at their dealerships. That is what will happen very soon. Bajaj have a winner in their hands now and it would take a monumental amount of stupidity to screw up this scooter for Bajaj. Hope they don't try to actually do that!

They have already deputed chetak only sales personnel to every dealership that the chetak will be sold from. With their own tee shirts etc.

I think they are damn well serious about this one. And there were as many people interested only in the chetak as the number of people walking in for the 390 adventure. So that is saying something.