Page 75 - Forbes - Asia (October 2019)
P. 75
Ather 450 electric scooters (left)
at the Ather Experience Center in
Bangalore. Interactive touchscreen
dashboard (above). AtherGrid
chargers (bottom) are positioned
across the city.
torcycle maker Hero MotoCorp, which Sleek designs
owns a 32% stake in the company. Hero and brand loyalty
is the biggest maker of gas-power scoot- are important to In-
ers by sales in India and the world, and dian scooter driv-
this year started selling electric scooters ers, but price is par-
under its own brand. amount. There
CEO Mehta and Jain, now Ather’s Ather has a disad-
chief technology officer, first became in- vantage; its Ather
terested in transport technology while 340 sells for rough-
studying engineering at the Indian In- ly $1,600 and its
stitute of Technology Madras (IIT Ma- Ather 450 for
dras)—in the city now called Chennai. $1,770. Equivalent
“We started building a Stirling engine,” gas-powered mod-
says Mehta, referring to a closed-sys- els go for about
tem engine that uses compression and $950. Electric com-
expansion of liquid to transfer heat into petitors have also
motion. “We couldn’t, but the philoso- popped up, with local websites offering CHARGING AHEAD
phy of what we wanted to do went pret- comparisons of the best electric scoot-
ty deep for us.” ers for sale. Can India successfully switch over
to electric scooters? Scooter charg-
The two took engineering jobs after The pair plan to lower prices by tak-
ing needs to happen largely at
graduating in 2012, but were soon back ing advantage of subsidies and tax
home, says Mehta, and the installa-
in IIT Madras’ labs, using its tech incu- breaks being rolled out across India to tion of charging points in custom-
bator to test an idea for battery packs. incentivize lower emissions. Mehta says ers’ homes, as well as across cities
That work quickly led them into electric customers are also drawn to the bikes’ the e-scooters ride in, is key to the
scooters. The next year, Mehta and Jain interactive touchscreen dashboards and infrastructure. “I was honestly wor-
launched Ather. The name comes from built-in Google-backed navigation sys- ried that when we started instal-
lations, people would drop out,”
the ancient Greek concept of a fifth ele- tems, along with faster acceleration
says Mehta, “but the success rate in
ment, “the purest form of energy,” says than gas-powered kin.
Bangalore has been over 90%.”
Mehta. “We really wanted to build an “Not even 5% of our market is the If every two-wheeler in India
energy company. Except for the inter- hip, T-shirt wearing, Apple watch-us- went electric, Mehta estimates, an-
net, you can trace almost any industry ing, Uber-taking kid we expected,” says nual electricity consumption would
to energy.” Mehta. “You’d be surprised, a lot of peo- actually rise by 6%. But the addi-
Last year, they opened a showroom ple are actually extremely keen for a lot tional vehicles would place almost
no extra demand on India’s already
in Bangalore and a second this year of freshness in the market. We’ve had overtaxed power grid. He compares
NAMAS BHOJANI FOR FORBES ASIA Delhi, Hyderabad, Pune and then is going to buy our product.” Creating going out and purchasing two new
a massive change of opinion on who
in Chennai, with plans to launch in
charging each bike to everyone
more sustainable transportation is only
Mumbai. They’re also looking to find
fans for their homes, products with
nominal impact on a household’s
partners in Asia and Latin America.
one piece of the puzzle though, says
electricity use.
However, Mehta says he wants to
Mehta. “Twenty years from now, Ather
should be way beyond an automotive
stabilize sales across India before Ather
ventures overseas.
company,” he says. F
OCTOBER 2019 FORBES ASIA | 73
