Building It Different: How Ather Rewrote the Rules of the EV Game

In 2013, when Ather Energy was born out of the labs of IIT Madras, the electric two-wheeler market in India was little more than an afterthought. Cheap kits from China dominated the scene, often dressed up with local decals and sold with little to no innovation. But two young engineers had a radically different vision—not just to build an electric scooter but to reimagine what an electric vehicle should be from scratch.

“A startup getting into automotive is almost a foolish decision,” says Shreyas Seethapathy, Chief of Staff, Engineering at Ather. It’s one of the most challenging industries in ...