After the investment by Hero Motors in Ather Energy what is very obvious is that there is a certain communication link that seems to have been cut… that they have managed to choke Tarun & Swapnil… their voices have almost been shut out… the way business was done seems to have changed somewhat…
There have been changes both inside and outside. Looks like production might not start even by mid 2018… Continue reading
Country’s largest two-wheeler maker Hero MotoCorp will invest up to Rs 205 crore in one or more tranches to acquire up to 30% stake in Bengaluru-based Ather Energy Pvt.
“The board of directors of the company, in its meeting held on October 26, 2016, approved an investment of up to Rs 205 crore, in one or more tranches, for approximately 26-30% shareholding in Ather Energy Private Ltd,” Hero MotoCorp said in a BSE filing.
The strategic investment is subject to execution of definitive agreements and completion of certain conditions customary for a transaction of this nature.
It further said: “As the market leader and… Continue reading
Tork Electric Motorcycle launched today 30 September 2016 at Techspark 2016 for a price of Indian Rupees 124,999. This is not any random bike… this is a bike that has won 1st place in the Isle of Man TT. Gosh look at the loosers asking for Tork to lessen the price as if it is a luna moped… you guys are buying a solid race bike.Its worth every penny… go out and buy it and leave the Pulsars and Bullets gaging behind… at every single signal lights!!! No petrol bike can outrace the Tork from the blocks…
Tork today becomes the best Electric Motorcycle in the world in its class and price. Ather Energy has to make way to be the second best 2 wheeler and Gogoro scooter 3rd. Phew what a year… and the year has still 3 months to end…
Well done Tork you guys deserve every bit of it…
What is an EV charging Kiosk? This is an EV Charging Station that could (depending upon the location) charge your EV for free or for a FEE. This fee could also vary depending upon the location of the station.
How does it work?
There is also another challenge… about places with power cuts. There is solution for this also. In places like Kerala even today they almost live in the dark ages… Continue reading
Hero Electric has announced an online launch of its latest product – Hero Electric Nyx, starting at 29,990. The e-scooter will be available exclusively on Paytm, and will be the first time that an e-bike company has chosen an online platform to launch their product.
The Hero Electric NYX was launched on June 5, 2016 which was the World Environment Day. The bike is easily available at India’s largest… Continue reading
It has been the observation of PlugInCaroo from day one (and even during design stage) that Ather Scooter needs to have bigger wheel size to take advantage of its engine. It should have a minimum of 16 inches if it not 17 inches to take full advantages of the EV.
It already has a very powerful 3,000/5,000 watt motor and also has very powerful battery that can quickly transfer the power requirement to it really makes no sense in going with a small “scooter” wheel. Is the wheel a bottleneck to the awesome power output of the bike?
Just by putting on 17 inch wheels the very same bike (with a little modification) can easily cross 100kmph instead of the existing 75kmph speed. Moreover the bigger wheels along with the existing suspensions will only improve the ride quality and handling speed over rough terrain or unpaved roads. Over paved city roads the rid-quality will be unparalleled even by more expensive motorcycles or scooters!!!
Further the high rate of torque and speed pick-up makes it necessary to have bigger wheels. Since this could reduce range due to the added weight Ather can add a little bigger battery and position it as a premium model.
This bigger model can also be pushed as Electric-Trike, Electric-ATV, Electric 3 wheel or 4 wheel Tractor.
If they do manage to bring out a bigger wheel model they can move on to the electric Trike and electric ATV models. These do have a huge market in middle-east for leisure riding over sand dunes in the desert especially in the future taking into consideration the falling price of oil and the 2022 FIFA Football World Cup. Enormous business opportunity awaits Tarun and Swapil.
The 17 inch wheel will also enable them to get into the lucrative and ever growing tractor business in India and replace the existing tractors with cheaper Electric Tractors. As the Gulf Oil markets crumble and falls millions of Indians are going to return to India and get into Agriculture and this will create a huge boom around this business.
With smaller wheels their choice of vehicles will be limited.
Finally after years and months of waiting… Ather is due to display its fabled Electric Scooter at SURGE, Bangalore which is Web Summit’s first technology summit which will be held in India between Feb 23-24, 2016.
This is Gogoro Electric Scooter… just for reference… how technology can handicap a scooter to lonely single person device 😉
Bangalore, Jan 28th, 2016: India’s first smart electric scooter will debut at SURGE on 23rd February. The scooter is the maiden venture of Ather Energy, a Bangalore based technology start-up by IIT graduates Tarun Mehta & Swapnil Jain.
“Ather Energy is very thrilled to be part of SURGE as it is one of the most influential technology summits in the world…. As the launch will bring to fruition the exciting journey that we started two years ago” says Tarun Mehta, CEO and co-founder of Ather Energy on their website.
SURGE is Web Summit’s first conference in India. Web Summit is one of the biggest and most popular technology summits globally that is known to be a great platform for start-ups and investors. Over the last few years, Web Summit has seen the participation of technology players ranging from Fortune 500 companies like Apple and Google to the most exciting startups including Airbnb and Uber.
Tarun is also a speaker at SURGE and will speak on the inevitability of electric being the future of automobiles and their “uncompromising electric scooter” – with a powerful Li-ion battery pack and sub-one hour charging.
In an ecosystem dominated by software players, Ather Energy is among the few hardware startups in India. Their first product, the S340 is completely designed in-house and will commence commercial production in Bengaluru later this year.
Ather… dont make the mistake to hide behind dazzle prints or camouflage… EVs as of now due to their scarcity in India and also due to the fact that most EVs (E2O or chinese scooters) are first generation do not need to hide from cameras…even if the vehicle would go through a future change in design… keep the ev folks informed… like the one where the scooter took had a fall and scratched… thats the kind of news the EV lovers are looking for and these kind of incidents get carried over the Social Media… depending upon how you put it out in the social media…
The biggest problem that EVs ever have in India is VISIBILITY… VISIBILITY…VISIBILITY… even today the biggest problem with E2O is VISIBILITY… VISIBILITY… VISIBILITY… there are hardly any electric vehicles on the road for people to know what is an electric vehicle and what are its advantages. People have never seen a made in India Li-Ion scooter… pictures and videos would help a lot… in Mumbai its said “Jo dikhta hai… wo hi bikta hai“… Celebs have proved this to be true…
But following in the footsteps of a petrol vehicle would be the biggest mistake EVER!
In an EV scenario… creating the vehicle is just half the story… setting up the charging infrastructure is the other half. Petrol vehicles are unfamiliar with such a scenario. Also any company who comes to create the vehicle irrespective of the lack of existence of either electricity or charging infrastructure in that area are definitely trying to climb up a greased pole.
Flaunt the bike… get it across… let it be commented or discussed… dont hold back… let the vehicle industry be shocked with a Bike Company promoting its test Mule… Let There are no Rules…
Dont do it like a Petrol Car/Bike company does… most of them deal and do business in traditional way of how a refrigerator was sold 20 yrs ago… They usually pull off a silk cloth over the vehicle and hoist the scooter one final day… and then say ok we have opened the bookings let the money roll in…
If an EV company does this then people usually go… “I was not expecting this”, “expensive”, “do you have pink?”, “too powerful”, “we have power cuts in our area in our areas”, “I cant take it on vacation to the next state”, “I was going to order, but I have to pay my rent” & 101 excuses… but these are people who will not be buying the vehicle.. but have a lot of time to kill on the Internet.These could also be of people who have liked your Facebook page…
What about those people who would be interested as they find the vehicle useful and convenient but is not aware of the bike. In case of such people the news of the scooter will reach him probably 300 days after the bike is showcased in the Dealer showroom. To enable faster reach and wider publicity Ather Energy will have to use every energy of the Social Media and Indian EV websites mainly. And to make this happen they have to stat putting out interesting images & videos of the scooter…
So dont undermine Social Media… it would sell much more vehicles EVER than TV, Radio or Newspaper advertisment TOGETHER!!! Put out as many images and videos of the vehicle but make sure each is different and unique and never repetitive like the NanoGenX “Factory Visit” campaign.
Bill Gates had said that the Tata Nano in its early version did not sell in large enough numbers due to the “Edsel effect”.
What is Edsel? Of all the car he created Edsel was Henry Ford’s favorite car… it was so good that he named in memory of his only son Edsel Ford…. who died at a relatively young age at 49, of stomach cancer. Edsel was supposed to have some truly awesome features and was to be like no other car before it. Edsel Car was long, wide, lavishly decorated with chrome, had a lot of gadgets and was equipped with engine which could really rustle up some serious power.
In fact, even before the Edsel car was launched there was a lot of hype around it. For months, Ford had been telling the industry press that it “knew” (through its market research) that there would be great demand for the vehicle. Ford also insisted that, in the Edsel, it had built exactly the “entirely new kind of car” that Ford had been leading the buying public to expect through its pre-introduction publicity campaign for the car. In reality, however, the Edsel shared its engineering and bodywork with other Ford models, and the similarities were apparent once the vehicle was viewed firsthand.
Two years, two months and fifteen days later, it had only sold 109,446 Edsels (this included cars bought by Ford executives, dealers, salesman, workers etc). The number amounted to less than 1% of the cars sold in America during that period. On November 19, 1959, Ford pulled the plug on the car. Estimates suggested that Ford lost around $350 million on the car.
So what went wrong? Lets find out…
Ather Energy has planned an Electric Scooter launch for 2016 with speed of 75kmph and range of around70 kms while Hero Leap (hybrid) has a speed of 100kmph and range of 350kms. Both are priced around 90,000.
Which one would you buy? Me?… neither cause I think both look kind of sissy or lady like.
Probably if they came out with an Enfield Bullet, KTM Duke or a Pulsar I would be the 1st to line up…but right now… its time for sissy launches… so make way for the lady bikes 😉
HERO LEAP Hybrid SCOOTER ATHER ENERGY Electric SCOOTER
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