The Ather 450X Updated

The Ather 450X is almost 12 years old now and it was in need of some changes. Are the ones brought about sufficient? We went to Bengaluru to find out.

Story: Ajit Menon M

Photography: Kalidas M

Change is permanent. This is something one should keep reminding oneself of. You get older but wiser. You become weaker but you find easier and better ways to do the job. Mind you, these are not the lamentations of someone getting on in years.

When Ather called us to say that they had upgraded their 450X with a whole new set of features, I was wondering what exactly would have been upgraded. I personally would have gone with a better battery pack to enhance the range. The Ather 450 had been in development for almost 12 years and has now been in production for about seven years.

Cut to the briefing and they had the upgraded Ather 450X ready for us. What are the changes you ask? Well, to the discerning eyes of the viewer, there are none apparent outside except for the two new colours: Hyper Sand and Stealth Blue. All the changes are internal. First, you get three modes of traction control: rain, road, and rally. Now rain mode is pretty obvious. You don’t need all the power in the rain, especially in a country like India. The road mode is also the same wherein you get all the power. The rally mode is the one that was interesting to me. It lets the vehicle slide away from you and brings it back in control the instant it starts slipping away.

Then there is the “magic twist”, which was a part of the Ather 450 Apex but now you get granular control. Say you want to slow down by 20 per cent or 50 per cent, then you can spin the throttle in the opposite direction by roughly the same percentage and the regen will take care of this. You would need some getting used to this feature, though, for the vehicle halts when you do this.

Also, I was right in guessing about the battery pack. The 2.9-kWh Ather 450X gets an all-new battery with an IDC range of 126 kilometres but 110 km of true range and the 3.7-kWh 450X gets 161 km IDC range but 130 km of true range. Then there are a number of software updates. All of these were supposed to be experienced on the track the next day.

I have been to the Aruani grid earlier and it is a fun track. There are long corners and fast straights to keep everyone interested. I was on a go-kart earlier and I used to wonder how people attack others on the corners when on motorbikes. Well, Ather couldn’t have gotten a better place to test the vehicles for us. We were asked to take our scooters out for a spin with the legendary Anand Dharmaraj leading and showing us the way.

The software updates, called the AtherStack 6, received by the 2025 Ather 450X were explained to us as we took charge of the scooter. The most helpful was the “ping my scooter”, which makes your scooter beep when in a parking lot. I don’t listen to music or even attend any calls while riding but there is now a WhatsApp call feature. There is also a way to share your location, so that a friend could meet you at that location.

The 450X was primarily designed to be a city scooter with a promise about handling with sudden bursts of acceleration. And it still does this exceptionally well. The track was partly blocked with a few makeshift shops, so that the riders could experience the scooter’s manoeuvrability, and there was a section where the riders could use the straight-line speed. Then there was something quite common to Bengaluru, which is construction material spread out. Also, there was a special section away from the track where the riders could engage the traction control modes and experience how those felt.

I have said it before and I’ll say it again—there is nothing as much fun as riding electric scooters as nimble as the Ather around a track. I was banking so hard by my third lap that the left lower bodywork of my scooter scraped the ground for the second time and this brought me back to reality. And the sound of the motor whining as you accelerate. Music to my ears. The 450X produces the same sound as the previous models when accelerating and this makes you feel like you are piloting an X-wing into hyperspace.

Coming to the traction control, I switched to the rain mode and the scooter felt lazy just the way it should. I then switched to road mode and this, too, felt superb. What I was wondering was about the rally mode. There was a banked corner and some dirt where I could test this mode. Now the rally mode should let me keep the throttle pinned and let the vehicle slide a little and bring it back in control and it felt absolutely so. We need the scooter at our office for a proper test before we can comment on this any further, though.

Since all our riding was restricted to the track where one is bound to keep the throttle wide open, the announced change in the range is something we have to believe. But coming from Ather, this should be true as they are pretty serious about the workings of the 450X.

I did experience a couple of niggles, too, here and there. I am 5’ 9” and the handlebar touched my knee over and over again while turning the scooter. I was sitting so far back that essentially my Ather was a single-seater. Also, the screen on my scooter had some issue and it developed a couple of white lines which would appear and disappear over and over again. Taking a test-ride should help potential buyers sort out these issues.

The 450X has changed and it is a lot better than the previous model but there are some quirks which need to be ironed out. There is a framed obituary for the exhaust of a motorcycle at the Ather showroom in Indiranagar, Bengaluru. I am pretty sure that this is attainable but there is still a long way to go. The 2.9-kWh 450X now costs Rs 1,46,999 and the one with the Pro Pack costs Rs 1,63,999. The 3.7-kWh 450X costs Rs 1,56,999 and the one with the Pro Pack costs Rs 1,76,999. Considering the price, I know that the other electric scooters might seem more attractive but this is the one I would go for.