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PluginIndia Electric Vehicles

Next Generation E-Bike that makes sense!  Ather Energy origins

13/1/2014

10 Comments

 
By Kamlesh  Mallick
Mr Johnson's excellent blog on the state of e-bikes in India, makes good reading.  The current generation e-bikes are really stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea. 

Lets face it, most e-bikes that are sold in India are under powered, take 7-8 hours to charge, use unreliable lead acid batteries and have not sold well and thus have not made a dent in the Indian two wheeler market.


All of this is about to change.  There is hope for the Indian two wheeler industry to have an electric future.
PictureSwapnil Jain and Tarun Mehta - Founders of Ather Energy
This view on the e-bike industry is echoed by Mr Swapnil Jain co founder of Ather Energy, a startup, working on next generation electric vehicles, based out of Chennai.
He says - "Most of the current generation e-bikes are using obsolete technology which have reached a stagnant state and no further development is possible in them. The top speed they provide is not suitable for most people. We have seen the best that these technologies can provide us they don't live up-to our expectations."

Mr Swapnil and his friend Mr Tarun Mehta founded Ather Energy to solve this problem of providing an e-bike (electric scooter), that is both compelling and affordable to the Indian public. Both of them graduated from IIT Madras, belonging to a specific stream called Engineering Design - which bridges the gap between various engineering fields and is focused towards realizing a product.
The Ather team consists of innovative engineers having experience in Formula SAE, passionate industrial designers and intelligent electronics engineers from various parts of the country. All of them share a passion for automobiles.
Ather Energy was founded in October 2013, but work on the product began early that year. 

PictureTeam at Ather Energy working on the next generation e-bike
Emerging Technologies
Mr Swapnil says - "The product is being designed to be practical and perform on part with other gasoline scooters in the market. Our product uses emerging technologies in terms of cell chemistry, motor and controller technology which are in the middle of S curve of development and will see steep improvements in future. This will help us provide better products as we proceed. Even at the current state these technologies perform far better than the current e-bikes technologies."

The point made by Mr Swapnil about emerging technologies, is significant. These technologies are available in the market now, but are expected to develop significantly in the coming years. So it makes sense to adopt technologies which are on the upward curve.

PictureE-Bikes + Lithium Ion Batteries = Future
One big example of this technology is the battery pack - which is the most important component in an EV.
Currently e-bikes sold in India use the Sealed or Valve Regulated Lead Acid batteries. These are better than the old plain lead acid, as they don't need to be topped with distilled water in regular intervals and are maintenance free.  They are cheap but the biggest problem is that these battery packs cant store as much energy as the new generation Lithium Ion packs. Most E-Bike manufactures store 1kWh worth of energy in the battery packs within their e-bikes.  Just to get a perspective, the Mahindra e2o electric car stores 10kWh worth of energy. 1kWh is sufficient for an e-bike. But the chemistry of the lead acid battery is a problem. They are heavy, they have lesser charge cycles (which will mean replacement of battery sooner than a customer would like), they take forever to charge (7-8 hours on a 230 V, 15 Am socket)

So its imperative that any new e-bike should go for a non lead acid based battery pack (say Lithium Ion) in order to deliver decent power, go further and satisfy customers.

In-House development
Mr Swapnil talks about spending time on technology and processes before launching a product - "At Ather we believe that any product which was not designed under one roof cannot deliver the best and hence we are designing most of the components in house with a high level of synergy between them. This will help us deliver a better product. A simple analogy is Mac vs Windows PC. The tighter control you have on development, the better you focus on the vision and hence better the product is. Its a tough task but its the only way to go forward if you want a good product."

This is another interesting point. Automobile manufacturers have been repeating the same policies for years. They tend to buy existing parts from third-party manufacturers, instead of designing or building their own. This is one reason why vehicles have lacked originality for decades.
Designing and manufacturing your own parts enables you to innovate by building the parts around your new and improved designs. In other words, you can’t improve cars/bikes unless you come up with a new design yourself. Also, this allows Ather to implement both quality and cost controls effectively. This is definitely the way to go.  And am glad Ather energy are sticking to their convictions. 
Affordable E-Bike
Now we do know that Lithium-Ion battery packs are expensive. A pack with 1kWh worth of energy currently costs around $500, which is around Rs 31,000.  This is just the battery pack.  Most Indian consumers expect the bike to cost that much!
Mr Swapil gives his view on an affordable e-bike - "Affordable is a subjective matter, in a total cost of ownership basis our product will be much cheaper than any gasoline scooter but you pay some cost upfront. Any technology is affordable if it receives mass adoption, with enough buyers one day even space travel will be affordable. Before mass adoption its the early adopters who push the technology forward, our current product is targeted for early adopters. We dont want to disappoint early adopters on any front hence the product is meant to be a premium product, a product which makes them feel happy about their decision. We believe within half a decade the technology will surpass the current gasoline prices."

The most important take is the overall ownership cost.  This is something people always ignore. Electric vehicles offer significant savings when you take the total ownership costs into consideration.
Contact
Ather Energy

IIT Madras incubation cell,
3rd Floor, IIT Madras Research Park 
1, Kanagam Road, Tharamani
Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600113, India
swapniljain@atherenergy.com
tarun@atherenergy.com
Mobile: +91 99520 93 37
Website - http://atherenergy.com/

10 Comments
Ramesh Krishnan
23/1/2014 04:36:30 am

Why so late? Why in the year 2015?

Reply
Tarun Mehta link
24/1/2014 01:28:01 am

Hi Krishnan,

There are a bunch of regulations that we need to clear w.r.t. the vehicle and the battery pack. Clearing those and making the vehicle road worthy will take at least 15-18 months. Hence 2015.

However, we expect to have a prototype with all the specs demoed by April end this year. Post that we will be running a number of trial sessions in IIT Madras. If you feel like dropping by and having a look then, then let us know!

Contact @99623 96532 or @99520 93379.

Reply
Amit Aswal
7/2/2014 02:43:49 am

Really glad some people putting their effort to make wonder.

I have few suggestion though(I think you probably thought of), ;) but anyway

1) Solar chargeable battery option.
2) Hybrid option as well as plugin option, just a thought, but it'll made bike extra heavy.
3) Existing fuel bike into e-bike

All the best
Amit Aswal

Reply
Swapnil Jain link
7/2/2014 03:31:42 am

HI Mr. Amit,

Appreciate your support.

1) Solar option can be easily accommodated, we have given it a thought but its currently on hold as they team is a bit small to handle all the efforts needed.

2) Personally we dont believe in hybrid because we think its not very elegant, it has combined disadvantages of both electric and gasoline. At Ather we concentrate a lot on simplifying the design for enhanced user experience.

3) We did think about it but doesnt go with our basic philosophy of vertical integration in design. A product can only be good if all the components are designed under single roof. The example of mac vs assembled windows pc, meeting the quality requirements becomes impossible.

Thanks a lot do follow us on facebook https://www.facebook.com/atherenergy?ref=br_tf for regular updates.

Faithfully Yours,
On behalf of Ather Energy
Swapnil Jain

Reply
bharath
24/9/2014 03:46:23 am

great work you guys....!

All the best

Reply
Sheetanshu Tyagi
29/11/2014 08:07:11 pm

Hey ,
Great work. Glad to see something like this.
How much will the actual price of this model be when selling ? Any approximate ?
Thanks and best of luck

Reply
Swapnil Jain
2/7/2015 10:30:29 am

Hey Sheetanshu,

Price is yet to be finalized, do sign up for our newsletter for updates

Reply
shyam
3/12/2014 08:44:13 am

Please consider me for a dealership in Chennai. I am a corporate lawyer with over 25 years experience; as global head of the legal and secretarial function of large IT/ITES companies in the last decade. I want to do something different. Your bike looks to be a winner. My only suggestion is that the price should be right; otherwise all other parameters look fine.....Wish you all success......Sincerely...Shyam

Reply
ARUN SHARMA link
2/7/2015 05:58:22 am

Hi..
Thak you for sharing this information really this is a great work. Glad to see something like this. How much will the actual price of this model be when selling .
thank you

Reply
Swapnil Jain
2/7/2015 10:31:13 am

Hi Arun,

Price is yet to be finalized, do sign up for our newsletter for updates

Reply

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