India's original EV startup is expanding its family - to family scooters

livemint.com:

₹110,000 to ₹144,000, ex-showroom, inclusive of government incentives, the Ather Rizta has a proportioned seat to accommodate two passengers, and a spacious flat floorboard. The company's TVS iQube, meanwhile, is priced at ₹136,000 and higher. “When we launched the Ather 450S, we thought price was the big hiccup preventing us from selling more," Mehta said.

“The S didn't really move the needle for us - it did move the needle from December to March where our market share went from 8.5% to 12.5%, but it was way below our 25% target by FY24. But the conclusion was - and we factored this in our pricing for Rizta - is to not play the price game," he added. People don't buy an Ather if they're looking for the cheapest product, they buy it for its quality for its design as the primary reasons, Mehta said.

"So with S, one of the big experiments that convinced us internally is not many people want to buy a performance scooter. Our cap wasn't because of price, it was other reasons - and a big hypothesis is form factor," said Mehta, who is also the chief executive officer of Ather Energy. “With the 450 in the performance segment, Ather has 12.5% market share in e-two wheelers.

There is no other practical EV sports scooter in our opinion. We decided we should build other products for 85% of the market." So it was an incredibly timed lesson otherwise we could have priced the Rizta and burnt money - but we didn't make those mistakes and have still pulled off a healthy pricing for the Rizta overall. We should build great products.