Ather Energy, a startup in the electric vehicle industry, has chosen to provide customers refunds for scooters’ charging accessories purchased before April 12, 2023.
As a result of the government discovering that chargers were being paid separately, which is against the FAME II regulations, TVS and Hero MotoCorp have also been compelled to reimburse the charger cost to customers.
Ather Energy would return Rs 140 crore to 95,000 consumers who purchased the 450X up till April 12, 2023, according to a media source. While Hero MotoCorp would return Rs 2.23 crore to 1,100 purchasers of the Vida V1 Plus and V1 Pro, TVS will reimburse Rs 15.61 crore to 87,000 consumers who purchased the iQube S between May 2, 2022, and March 2023.
In order to qualify for subsidies under the Faster Adoption & Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme, EV manufacturers were suspected of mispricing their goods. According to the policy, rewards under the scheme are not available for electric 2-wheelers that cost more than Rs 1.50 lakh. A corporation cannot also charge extra for the sale of chargers or proprietary software.
According to a press release from Ather Energy, “While there is no legal compliance obligation to bundle chargers, we recently made the step to bundle the charger with the car after speaking with MHI and in the greater good of the EV ecosystem. We have made the decision to reimburse the invoiced amount of the fees for automobiles purchased before April 12, 2023 in order to be fair to customers who have purchased the vehicle prior to this change. Customers who are qualified to get this refund will receive an email from us during the next weeks.
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