The Ather Cruiser Motorcycle Concept in the words of its designer

Sreejith Krishnan, a 33-year old Product Designer by profession, has imagined how an electric cruiser motorcycle from Ather could look like that is suitable for both daily commute and weekend trips. Since his sketches hit Behance, many publications featured his work and it even drew the attention of the company’s founder Tarun Mehta on Twitter who loved the effort of the designer.

We caught up with Sreejith yesterday and requested him to take us through his creation:

On the design, styling and features

We have lot of cruiser bikes in India but in the form of IC engine bikes but not electric. We have many options in electric but almost all are scooters. We have scooters from Ather, Okinawa and Hero Electric. Recently, Revolt launched their motorcycle but it is a commuter. I looked at the Indian market and realized we don’t have an electric cruiser right now. That’s why I thought why not think about a cruiser bike and the brand that came to my mind was Ather Energy. I live in Bangalore; we see a lot of Athers here. I haven’t ridden one but the sound is cool and it’s really cool to look at. Ather has done a pretty good job with the design.

This is my personal project during the lockdown. For every project I take new inspiration and it could be anything. So for the Ather cruiser motorcycle, my inspiration was the shark. I liked the shape of the animal because it is sharp, agile and aerodynamic. I thought the shark’s design could be used in the Ather cruiser’s design and I wanted to integrate the organic form of the shark and try to bring it into something technical.

Normally, cruisers would have a headlight unit and a windshield attached to it. Here what I have done is combined the headlight covering with the windshield. The windshield itself continues down and forms the cover of the headlight. The forks are not exposed and have a cover. These are not functional because this is just a concept. In place of the fuel tank, I have integrated one more screen, under which you can store a phone and operate the phone from the screen itself. Below that, you have a charging port for the bike. I’m not a fan of body panels and wanted to have a minimum. That’s why you have a few parts here and there which are white in colour, and I wanted to follow Ather’s theme of black and white with green tinges.

Coming down we have the side panel inspired from the shark’s tail fin and inside that we have the batteries that could be removable or swappable units. Then we have the motor cover which doesn’t look like a conventional motor cover. I wanted to hide the motor shape and that’s why the cover is of that shape. Regular cruisers have conventional suspension, springs at the back. For this, I have given a mono-shock at the rear because current Ather scooters have mono-shocks. We have split seats like modern sportbikes.

Ather’s plan for an electric motorcycle

Ather’s founder Tarun Mehta told ElectricVehicleWeb that though an electric motorcycle is in the long-term vision of the company, the project is not even in the conceptual stage. He told us before the lockdown that the company would double-down on the 450 Series and increase the retail footprint to bring Ather to new customers.