In its most recent notification to the owners, the Bengaluru-based electric scooter manufacturer Ather Energy has now announced that it will be cutting off the charging of scooters at their power grids after they reach 80 percent charging status. According to the company it has been done to reduce the waiting periods at the grids for all the owners and also optimize the battery as well. Furthermore, the company added that this will also help in increasing fairness for all users of the grid.
The notification was shared on Twitter via Coimbatore Ather Owners – CiAO. The page shared a picture of the official notification from the company. The notification stated, “Hello Optimisation, Ather Grids are soon going to be upgraded with 80% cut-off. Optimal charge for you, reduced wait time for others, and fair usage for everyone.”
It is believed that the company has taken this decision in order to reduce the waiting time for owners at the grid as charging scooters can take a little while and when a number of people arrive at the same time it makes them wait a longer. With this new optimization the company will cut off the power supply after the scooter reaches 80 percent charge. Ather scooters 0-80 percent charge time is lower than 80-100 percent and with this optimization it will make it fairer for all the users of the scooters.
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Furthermore on the same tweet, Ather Energy’s CEO and Co-founder, Tarun Mehta stated, “Once we disconnect the solenoid, charging cannot continue for safety reasons. You risk arcing and other non savoury things otherwise.” For those unaware, a solenoid is a device comprised of a coil of wire, the housing and a moveable plunger (armature). When an electrical current is introduced, a magnetic field forms around the coil which draws the plunger in. More simply, a solenoid converts electrical energy into mechanical work and in Ather’s case it controls the flow of energy to the battery.
So if this solenoid gets disconnected by a person during the charging, it could lead to arcing. Now, arcing, or electrical arcing, occurs when an electric current flows through the air from one conductive point to another. The heat and energy emitted by the arcing current can cause significant injury or death to anyone exposed to it. So in order to avoid this company will itself disconnect the solenoid to avoid any damage to the vehicle, battery or the person.
Furthermore, taking these steps will make all the EV owners responsible and will make will help them inculcating the habit of charging their scooters at homes and offices to 100 percent. As of yet Ather is the only manufacturer that has announced this optimization but we believe that more manufacturers could follow this suite. Also if more manufacturers do decide to take this step it will make EVs even more sustainable.
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