Ather to shift most production processes to upcoming factory

Hosur: Electric two-wheeler manufacturer, Ather Energy, plans to shift most of its production work to the upcoming manufacturing plant in Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar (formerly Aurangabad) in Maharashtra. The company currently hires around 1,500 people in its Hosur plant, and could take on more than double that number in the upcoming facility, top executives of the EV maker said on Sunday.

Ather, which has two manufacturing plants in Hosur, plans to build the third one in Aurangabad Industrial City (AURIC) in two phases. The first phase of construction of the ‘Factory 3.0’ will commence in May 2025 and production will begin in July 2026. The factory is set to span over 98.34 acres with Rs 1,122.7 crore total investment. Reports last year had stated that the plant would cost upwards of Rs 2,000 crore.

“Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar has a good supplier base and good quality of workforce with Maharashtra and Gujarat having an excellent market for two wheelers,” said Swapnil Jain, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder. Jain and Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Tarun Mehta were speaking during a media tour of the Hosur facilities.

The company is looking to shift a bulk of key processes like assembling, electronics and transmission assembly and painting to the planned facility in Maharashtra. Eventually, the Hosur facilities will only be used for battery pack assembly. The painting of the EV’s were previously outsourced to different suppliers, but now Ather will do it in-house, company executive said.

The first phase of construction is expected to be completed by March 2027, and the second phase will provide an additional installed production capacity of 500,000 EVs per year. Upon completion of construction for both phases, the total installed capacity will be 1 million EVs at the planned factory. The company is targeting 1.42 million two-wheelers from all its facilities combined.

Speaking to reporters, Mehta said that Ather is planning new platforms, one of which which will be family-focused two-wheelers and one will be EV motorcycles, in addition to the already existing platform of performance oriented two-wheelers. Jain said that the Maharashtra factory will play a key role in developing the new product platforms.

The Hosur Factory currently focuses on assembling EVs and manufacturing battery packs. 50% of the workforce in the battery plant and 60% in the vehicular assembly plant is female, the executives said.

Ather plans to transition from using MNC (Lithium Nickel Manganese Cobalt Oxide) cells to LFP (Lithium Iron Phosphate) cells to power its vehicles. A source stated that they plan to make the transition soon but will retain both the types of cells in their EV production.