Ather will need a few more years of investments and subsidies: CEO Tarun Mehta
Ather Energy will continue to require external capital for a few more years for growth, cofounder and chief executive Tarun Mehta said on Saturday.
At the same time, the overall two-wheeler EV industry would require government subsidies to continue to grow at a healthy rate, he added. Urging for a third version of the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) subsidies, Mehta said that a “critical and sunrise sector” like two-wheeler EVs “could see degrowth with some products becoming unviable” if subsidies are pulled back too quickly.
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Offering CollegeCourseWebsiteIIM KozhikodeIIMK Advanced Data Science For ManagersVisitIndian School of BusinessISB Product ManagementVisitIIM LucknowIIML Executive Programme in FinTech, Banking & Applied Risk ManagementVisitThe comments come as the government has sunsetted the FAME-II subsidies at the end of March, moving on to the Rs 500 crore-worth Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme (EMPS), 2024. On Saturday, ET reported that Ather, Hero Motocorp, Bajaj Auto, TVS, Ola Electric and Kinetic Green have received approvals to claim the subsidy.
Mehta added that the firm would continue to look for external capital, but that the funds would be used to launch new products and grow the business instead of “handling business cash losses”. He did not give details of future fundraising. Ather had raised Rs 900 crore in funding from two-wheeler major Hero MotoCorp and Singaporean sovereign wealth fund GIC in September
