Ather Energy's Tarun Mehta Takes A Dig At Ola's True Range Claims

Ather Energy Co-founder & CEO Tarun Mehta has reacted to Ola Electric's Chief Marketing Officer explaining the difference between ARAI-certified range and 'true' range. Speaking about the range of the Ola electric scooters, Ola Electric's Chief Marketing Officer Varun Dubey said than true range, or the range experienced in the real world by customers is actually a lot lower than what the Automotive Research Association of India (ARAI) certifies. Dubey added that this is true for the entire automotive industry, including products with internal combustion engines, and added that Ola Electric is the only company which publishes the true range on the company's official website.

Also Read: Ola Electric Says Vahaan Registration Data Not Updated Real Time

Reacting to this, Mehta tweeted that Ather Energy actually has the trademark to the word "TrueRange" and that's what Ather Energy actually claims is the range offered by the Ather 450 X electric scooter in real-world conditions, although the certified range is much higher.

"Just heard an Ola rep say that they are the first OEM to talk about TrueRange (the range you will actually get in city conditions).

...when Ather LITERALLY has the trademark on that word.

Not even kidding," Mehta tweeted.

Just heard an Ola rep say that they are the first OEM to talk about TrueRange (the range that you will actually get in city conditions)

..when Ather LITERALLY has the trademark on that word.

Not even kidding. pic.twitter.com/qIE1VfnjTK

— Tarun Mehta (@tarunsmehta) January 7, 2022

Ola Electric has issued clarifications over mounting criticism of the company's electric scooter deliveries to customers, actual range of the electric scooters, as well as features which are still not offered on the production models. On the issue of actual deliveries against registration data reflected in the government's website Vahaan, Ola Electric says that Vahaan is not updated real time.

Also Read: Ola Electric Scooters Registration Numbers A Fraction Of Company Claims

Ola Electric started despatching its electric scooters to customers from December 15, 2021. The company has not revealed how many electric scooters have been delivered, but maintains that 4,000 scooters have been despatched to customers, and some delays are inevitable due to delays in registration. Ola Electric follows a direct to home delivery model, without any dealerships.

"It's fairly standard industry practice that every vehicle before it can be sold has to have ARAI certification. ARAI certifies a certain range, and that's what 181 km range is. No manufacturer in the country has every delivered the ARAI range to the customer. If you look at the petrol vehicles with the mileage, whatever the ARAI has certified as the mileage, which is what they advertise, there's a 30-40 per cent variation from that to what the customer gets in the real world.

"We're the only ones who's putting the true range on the website. And by the way, our variation from ARAI is the lowest, it's just 25 per cent, everyone else has 30-40 per cent variation. Let's be clear that ARAI range is the requirement of the law, we have to get the certification, we have to put that number on the website, and we have also shared with customers what the true range is, which by the way, no other manufacturer puts on their website," said Varun Dubey, Chief Marketing Officer, Ola Electric.

Also Read: Ola Electric Scooter Production Hits Speed Breaker

Ola Electric now says production has been ramped up to 1,000 scooters per day, and will be ramped up going forward to meet all existing orders, as well as future bookings as soon as the next purchase window is opened up.

Also Read: Ola Electric Scooters First Batch Despatched To Customers, Says CEO

Deliveries for the Ola S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters began on December 15, and Ola Electric's CEO Bhavish Aggarwal took to Twitter on December 31, 2021, to announce that despatches of all electric scooters purchased in the month of December had been completed. Although many customers have received their Ola electric scooters, there's been some contentious issues over the scooters' range, and features which are still not offered on the scooters delivered to customers. Ola Electric is saying that some features, including new features, will be rolled out as part of software updates over the next few months.