Ather's top priority is to cut cost structure for e-scooters

Co-founder and CEO, Tarun Mehta, tells Murali Gopalan that the company wants to lean on its engineering capability and rethink all platforms to offer the same experience at a lower cost structure.

- Murali Gopalan

Ather Energy is keen on targeting a larger buyer base for its scooters even while firming up plans to go global.

Electric scooter maker, Ather Energy will focus on lowering lits cost structure as part of an effort to make the brand more accessible to end-users.

"We have to invest a lot more time in engineering because the current cost structures that the industry has are not super long-term viable," Tarun Mehta, Co-founder and CEO, told Autocar Professional in a recent interview.

As he put it, "It is difficult...how do you make electric (scooters) fundamentally cheaper than petrol (offerings) despite having a battery pack that is an additional cost?" While there was no shortage of "fancy answers" which are constantly going around, there really "aren't any good answers" as of now.

"I think we have to figure out how to fundamentally draw cost structures to make that possible and this is what we want to do. Ather's strongest muscle is its engineering capability, we want to lean on that and rethink all platforms to make the same experience possible with a far lower cost structure," explained Mehta.

'I think entry-level bike users will find greater value in paying for e-scooters because of more convenience.'

Designs and platforms

He was equally categorical that performance would not be diluted as a result. The challenge was to build a product very similar to the company's 450X or 450 Plus but at a "very, very different" cost structure. While conceding that this was a very complex problem to solve, Mehta said only a company that controls its designs and platforms "right from the frame to all the electronics and everything...it is only that kind of a company that can solve it".