Ather Energy: Building India’s Next-Generation Electric Scooters | Decoding Manufacturing

For decades, India’s two-wheeler industry perfected manufacturing at scale,
but not innovation. Then came Ather Energy.

Tarun Mehta, Co-founder & CEO, shares how Ather built every layer of the EV stack, from battery architecture to charging infrastructure, entirely from scratch.

From a lab at IIT Madras to India’s one of the largest electric two-wheeler brands, Ather’s story is one of conviction over conditions.

Tarun and his team built what didn’t exist: suppliers, technology, and manufacturing processes, turning obstacles into opportunities.

In this episode of Decoding Manufacturing, Tarun shares insights on building deep R&D culture, scaling hardware with precision, and the mindset required to design in India, not just make in India.

Chapters:
0:24 – What led to the birth of Ather Energy?
2:23 – The biggest challenges in the early days
7:03 – Why did Ather decide to go full stack?
9:38 – When did it truly feel at ‘scale’?
10:53 – Balance of IP vs speed during scaling
12:15 – Defining decisions in Ather’s journey
13:23 – Views on the current ecosystem
14:57 – Flaws of early-stage hardware founders
20:12 – Hardware vs software-led future
22:11 – India’s manufacturing prowess
25:35 – Manufacturing vs global imports
26:28 – Advice to deep tech & advanced hardware founders
26:52 – Lowest point while building Ather
28:54 – The strongest belief from 5 years ago
29:36 – Doing Ather differently in 2025

Follow SeedToScale on LinkedIn for more insights: https://in.linkedin.com/company/seedt…
Follow Tarun on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tarunsmehta/?originalSubdomain=in

About Decoding Manufacturing:

This series spotlights the audacious founders positioning India to lead the next industrial revolution by transforming deep tech into scalable manufacturing breakthroughs.
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