All about Ather's electric expansion plans as it pushes ahead with 450X and 450 Plus

The plant has an annual capacity of 1.1 lakh scooters and 1.2 lakh battery packs. Ather Energy is looking at a monthly production of around 3,000 units initially from this new plant, which is planned to be expanded to 8,000 units by early 2022. The Bengaluru plant production capacity averaged around 300 units a month. In December 2019, the company had entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu government for setting up the 4,000 sqft plant.

Ather is looking to expand to 20 cities by the end of 2021. As part of phase-2 of expansion, the EV manufacturer had announced the launch of Ather 450X in 16 additional cities: Mysore, Hubli, Jaipur, Indore, Panaji, Bhubaneshwar, Nasik, Surat, Chandigarh, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam, Guwahati, Nagpur, Noida, Lucknow and Siliguri. Ather 450X will be available across 27 cities by Q1 2021.

The company’s current line-up of products includes Ather 450X and Ather 450 Plus. It unveiled its collector’s edition vehicle Series 1, the only two-wheeler with transparent panels in India, in September. Ather discontinued production of Ather 450 in November 2020.

In November last year, the company had raised an investment of USD 35 million in Series D funding led by Sachin Bansal’s investment of USD 23 million. Hero MotoCorp has also invested USD 12 million as a part of the Series D round in Ather Energy. These investments helped Ather to accelerate its expansion plans and speed up the deliveries of Ather 450X. It will also set up Ather Grid fast charging points across the country over the next five years, making public charging easy and accessible to owners of all-electric vehicles.