Ather Energy takes on Ola, Okinawa, opens second manufacturing facility

Firm is in also in talks with various state govts to set up a third plant, which when completed, is likely to have a capacity of a million units a year

Thirteen years ago, Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain were trying to launch a hardware start-up in the energy space while they were students at IIT-Madras. But it was hard to build something physical. After graduation, driven by a core interest in the electric drive, Mehta quit his job at Ashok Leyland in 2012 to start work on battery packs--one of the biggest existing shortcomings in electric vehicles. Eventually, realising that the problem isn’t just the battery pack, Mehta and Jain were drawn to the idea of designing and building a completely new EV. The duo started smart electric scooter start-up