Electric two-wheeler maker Ather Energy on Saturday said it has invested over ₹400-500 crore to develop its latest scooter platform EL and its first mass-market e-scooter Monarc.
Earlier, the company launched Monarc at a starting price of ₹99,999 (ex-showroom Bengaluru) in three variants, S100, S125 and S160, with a host of new features, with deliveries of the vehicle commencing from September.
The company also said a 200 km version of Ather S and a feature-loaded Z version with a 125 km IDC (Indian Driving Cycle) range are also in the pipeline.
The EL platform added the latest features like onboard charging, AeBS and 10,000km service intervals.
“This would be the largest investment to date on a new product. I would say this will be an easy ₹400-500 crore investment between the platform and the product (or) likely more,” Ather Energy co-founder and CEO Tarun Mehta told PTI at the 4th edition of Ather Community Day hosted in Bengaluru on Saturday.
The latest vehicle architecture has been designed around lower costs, simpler servicing, easier charging and everyday usability rather than merely chasing performance.
Platform investments precede the product investments, and the product investments still require a lot, he said.
“We had originally started thinking about this platform all the way back in 2019, but we decided to give it time; we decided to wait. We picked it up again around 2024, so it’s taken roughly two years,” he stated.
The company’s latest offering is positioned below its existing range, which comprises Ather 450 series and Rizta, making Konarc Ather’s most affordable electric scooter in the domestic market.
Mehta said this investment is just in the product development side, as go-to-market and marketing investments are in addition.
“Just the product development, the R&D cost, the testing cost, just that alone will easily run into ₹400-500 crore,” he added.
Mehta further said that Konark is expected to do well, particularly in North and Central India.
“There has been a lot of feedback from the northern markets that we had captured while designing and developing this product, particularly. So, I obviously have very high hopes there,” he stated.
In the short term, the company has supply constraints, he said, adding that supplies start ramping up from the December quarter of this fiscal year onwards.
Ather Energy is setting up a ₹2,000-crore electric scooter manufacturing plant in Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) in central Maharashtra’s Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district with a capacity to produce up to one million units of vehicles and battery packs annually.
Ather also announced True Health, a comprehensive vehicle health report and resale value assessment; the fifth-generation Ather Bedrock battery platform; and Ather Node, a charging solution for apartment communities.
