Here, there and Ather

The visit to the Ather showroom captured Review here

The delivery happened on a weekend and before that the charger AtherDot was installed in my apartment.

If you like boardgames, Carcassonne in particular, you probably recognize the uncanny resemblance to meople!

The D Day
On the day of the delivery, one major advantage of Aadhar revealed itself. You get a Fame-2 subsidy per Aadhar number which is authenticated on the spot thru mobile OTP. A significant chunk of the onroad price of 1.31L is given back as subsidy 28K.

Day#1 Trial by Fire

After a quick visit to nearest temple and dropping the kids at home, I found a couple of excuses to take the Ather 450 for a spin. Then on the way back from a evening show in Phoenix mall, me and some of my friends in a car, decided to check out its prowess on a long empty stretch of Pallikkaranai road late in the night. Since I was not too sure about the braking power, I started conservatively and eventually picked up to a max sustainable speed of about 80kmph, peaked at 89kmph for my frame of 86kg. Decided to give it another test by adding a friend as pillion rider and still reached a speed for about 80kmph. 

All my doubts on the power of this thing were laid to rest. Though the speed was clearly limited to 80 by design, for most city rides this is a respectable upper limit.

Came home with 4km remaining in range - a very ambitious start for first day.

The Office commute:

6.5km one way, with kids school on the way. 90% of the way is slow moving city traffic and the rest is a blitz from last signal at SRP junction in OMR to my office.

- perfect demo for running in ECO mode in slow traffic, switching to RIDE for mid 30s to 40s and finally SPORT mode for the blitz. The closest analogy is 1/2 gears, 3/4 gear, top-gear riding in the three modes, even to the point of releasing the throttle while changing modes! One difference being you can choose top-gear Sports mode from 0 to 80 kmph as well.

The lazy math:

Range is 65 to 70 km per charge, 3 units per full charge, is less than ₹20 * 52 weeks is ₹1040. 65km is conveniently 5 days worth of commute.

Annual running cost comparison for office commute alone:

1040 for the EV

7630 for my 150cc bike

17140 for my diesel car

15600 for office cab 

Joy of listening to the noise and inhaling the fumes of all other polluting vehicles at SRP junction = ?

Now nothing irritates me more than those unnecessarily loud modified exhausts of those fat bikes, especially when you can kick ass ---- so silently.

The range:

Another analogy coming your way. Think of this as a Smartphone-on-Wheels and how you would plan for it's charging depending on how long it lasts on an average day's usage. If you have too little juice to last a day and assuming you cannot charge in office, you would ensure you plug it in the night. And let it charge for 3 or 4 hours and you would not care how long it takes till it reaches 100%. You use it for the city rides and never think of taking it for a weeklong roadtrip in some jungle. I'm still talking about the Ather. 

The ad on wheels:

On an average day, I am prepared to answer questions from at least one random stranger, fellow biker on the cost, range, battery life, max speed, motivation , inspiration, philosophy of owning an Ather 450. (Actually only the first 4 in that list, though I don't mind talking more if free coffee is offered!)

The user experience:

Just imagine your Honda Activa like performance with the silence of an electric train, and torque of an NTorq and sleekness of ApriliaSR150. Add Google maps navigation on the 7 inch screen and you get the picture.

As with most things these days, you can review most data on the dedicated Ather app in your smartphone and obsess about the predicted range and whether you can go to Mahabs daytour someday and return home in one full charge.

The Conclusion

A Indian startup making a two-wheeler equivalent of Tesla EV for Indian road conditions with associated high costs you pay for premium quality, battery management system and performance - is totally worth it - if fun city rides with reduced green-guilt is on your mind.