Electric vehicle (EV) maker Ather Energy’s learning curve is turning out to rather steep as it grapples with delays in the delivery of its scooters because of shortage of electronic components.

“We are in the middle of a global electronic shortage. We expect it to ease in two-three months,” Ravneet Pokhela, the company’s Chief Business Officer, told BusinessLine .

In a separate development, Ather — co-founded by Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Joshi — is expected to raise funds over $50 million next quarter.

Ather, India’s first private equity-funded EV maker, has been working on the supply chain issues. In the one month since it started sales, it has delivered over 20 scooters. While not divulging the number of orders received, the company said deliveries have been delayed because of a shortage of components such as MLC capacitors, resistors and some hardware parts.

Last month, it launched two variants of ‘intelligent’ electric scooters from its plant near here. The Ather 450 costs ₹1.28 lakh (road price), while the Ather 350 costs ₹1.13 lakh. The plant has a capacity of about 6,000 units per year.

Pokhela, who was earlier Vice-President and Consultancy Practice Head at Flipkart, said that in spite of delivery issues, there has been an increase in the number of test rides, indicating the growing interest in the vehicles.

“Interestingly, there has been more demand for the higher priced Ather 450,” he said.

Supply chain woes

If there are supply side challenges, it’s because the scooter has been built from scratch, he added. “There are no off-the-shelf parts available as the scooter has been built from scratch. Even for the vendors, the issues are unique.”

“We do understand that customers have been waiting for these vehicles. We clearly didn’t anticipate a shortage of components,” he said.

Meanwhile, in line with customer feedback, Ather has expanded the AMC package, which now ranges from ₹3,000 to ₹8,500. It has also started setting up charging stations across Bengaluru. There are 22 now, and the number will go up to 45 by the year-end.

New platform

There are also plans to set up another platform for a new line of scooters priced lower than the existing two variants.

“There will certainly be another scooter before the motorcycle we had planned to launch,” Pokhela said.

He said the company is well capitalised for the next phase but will need a further round of funding going forward.

Ather has so far received $51 million funding including about $20 million from Hero MotoCorp. Some of its other investors include Sachin Bansal, Binny Bansal and Tiger Global.

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