Founders of e-commerce website Flipkart.com have invested $1 million in an electric scooter project.
Named as Ather, this electric scooter project is incubated and supported by the incubation cell at IIT Madras. Ather raised their first round of capital in February 2014 from the founder of Aerospike and the Technology Development Board, Government of India.
The electric scooters are reported to use a newly built chassis, lithium ion batteries, battery management systems and body panels all built & developed in-house. Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain are the brains behind Ather and the project work began in 2013. The capital investment received will be used for product development in the near future.
The prototype which was built is claimed to receive 80% charge in one hour. It has navigation system mounted on the instrument cluster and a top speed of 75 kmph. The electric scooter can hit 0-60 kmph in 11 seconds. Battery life is rated at 50,000 km and weighs 15 kg.
Test rides of Ather will be available in Chennai and Bangalore in a couple of months.
Sales would commence only in late-2015 or 2016.
Source – Economic Times