Ather Energy Targets 20% Market Share in Near Term, Says CEO Tarun Mehta

The automobile industry needs more hedging by way of roping in more countries and suppliers to avert issues like the restricted supply of rare earth elements and magnets faced by original equipment manufacturers recently, Ather Energy co-founder and CEO Tarun Mehta has said.

Mehta, who announced the launch of a new electric scooter platform EL at the Ather Community Day in Bengaluru on Saturday, which will produce e-scooters for multiple segments, said that the company in the near-term was looking at a 20 per cent market share.

The first product from the latest two-wheeler architecture is expected to be rolled out next year.

"I think it (the issue of restricted supply of rare earth magnets) is sorted out for now. But I think the better answer now is to move away from heavy rare earths to at least light rare earths, which is what we are trying to do at Ather. And the faster we get away, I think the better we will all be," Mehta told PTI in a post-launch interaction with PTI.

Eventually, the world is very volatile now, "and we need solutions...we need more hedging. We need to hedge different countries, we need to hedge different suppliers altogether", he said.

Rare earth metals and magnets are critical components used in electric vehicles and electronics.

In April, China, which dominates the supply of these vital minerals, restricted the supply, impacting the domestic automobile industry significantly.

"This old model of one supplier, one country is too dangerous these days. You can't count on that. So we are working on supply chains and technology directions which give us more options rather than locking us down into one geo or one supplier," Mehta said.

On the EL platform, Mehta said the new platform brings down the number of parts in the e-scooter to 15 at the vehicle level, making it 15 per cent faster to assemble the product and also overall 15 per cent cheaper to produce at the assembly level.

"EL has a lower cost fundamentally because its transmission is a lower cost architecture. And its frame is a unibody steel chassis instead of a bolted aluminium frame. Those two things put together basically mean that the cost is lower." He said that the company has also been able to further reduce cost with our charge drive controller where the charger and the motor controller come together in a singular pack and that helps reduce cost further. So I think EL platform products will play a very large role in improving our margins in the coming years." He said that the company currently holds a 17 per cent share in the domestic electric two-wheeler space, which has doubled compared to the April-June quarter of last year.

" (Achieving) 20 per cent market share is something I think that is possible for our business in the near term," Mehta stated.

Noting that the company is just not a leader in Southern India but also in Gujarat and North-east, he said, "there are many cities all over north where we are market leaders. So I think the real opportunity for us and the real need for us is to keep focus and keep adding more and more stores. As that happens, our market share should inch up." Ather Energy at present has 416 outlets pan-India and the near-term target is to have 700 outlets by March next year, he said and added that in the last two quarters alone as many as 180 such stores have come up across the country.

Mehta emphasised on standardisation of charging infrastructure in the country, for accelerating the EV demand, and also filling the gap in charging facilities by having at least a charging point in every apartment complex.

"I think we also need to do a lot more work on standards. We talked today about how our charging standard is now a national standard, but that's honestly a rarity. It's still not driven hard enough," he added.