Ather Energy looks to increasing its production capacity, expand to new markets


By MYBRANDBOOK


Ather Energy looks to increasing its production capacity, expand to new markets

Hero MotoCorp-backed Ather Energy is planning to expand its production capacity by 12-fold and introduce a new range of products including an electric motorcycle.

 

Ather Energy currently has a manufacturing capacity of 35,000-40,000 units a year. It is in the final leg of setting up a greenfield factory that will have a capacity to produce 500,000 units a year, which will come up before September next year.

 

Having marked its presence in the market of Bengaluru, the start-up is looking to adding 30-35 cities in the next two-three years. About 10-11 cities will be added in 2020 alone. It has recently penetrated into Chennai recently and has become its second market after Bengaluru.

 

Besides Bengaluru and Chennai, Ather Energy’s immediate plans are to enter other large cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Ahmedabad and Kolkata, which will provide it scale. In mid-2020, the company plans to enter the Mumbai market.

 

At present, Ather Energy sells only one product, the Ather 450, which is priced at Rs 1.15 lakh. Its maiden product, the Ather 340 had to be pulled out after the entire demand almost moved in favour of Ather 450.

 

Ravneet Phokela, Chief Business Officer, Ather Energy, said that the company is mulling over launching another line of scooters for consolidating the scooter market, before moving on to motorbikes. “We will certainly build a motorbike. But that is still a few years away, may be three-to-four years. The new line scooters will hit the market in about 12-18 months,” he said.

 

The existing Ather 450 is being positioned at the premium end and so the company is working on an affordable scooter. “The (new) scooter will be one notch lower in price than the Ather 450 but certainly not a Rs 50,000 product. It will be a high performance, well designed and connected product, having a range of around 75 km to a full charge,” Phokela stated.

 

Ather Energy however does not have any dealers but has large experience centres where buyers can test drive the products and get first-hand experience of their electric vehicle technology. Right now, it is starting with one experience centre per city but it will also look at expansion later. These experience centres are spread over 2,500-3,000 sq ft.

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