Ola Electric made its debut in the electric vehicle market with the new S1 and S1. The Indian company is now planning to enter the electric four-wheeler market as well.
Ola co-founder and CEO Bhavish Agarwal has hinted that they may venture into the electric car space too. Bhavish says that they can get into the electric vehicle project by 2023.
Bhavish Agarwal had said that all the two-wheelers selling in India to be electric in the coming years. He also said that the manufacturers need to make investments to leverage the ecosystem and turn India into an Electric Vehicle hub in the future.
While the CEO did not give out details on its future plans to enter the electric four-wheeler market, one should know that Ola already operates a fleet of electric cars in India. Ola started operated electric vehicles in various cities in India and also made hubs to charge its fleet vehicles at the same time.
On 15th August, Ola Electric launched its first electric scooter – the S1 at a price of Rs 99,999. Ola will start the deliveries of the scooters from October and depending on the states, the on-road price can be lower as per the state subsidiaries.
During an interview with Times of India, Bhavish Agarwal said that they plan to develop the Krishnagiri plant in Tamil Nadu and make it a hub for electric vehicles in the future. Ola will also build an ancillary or supplier park, which will be able to set up shop in the area so that other buyers can also purchase directly.
Electric charging network
Ola said that it has plans to make the world’s largest two-wheeler charging network. The charging network will be known as the Ola Hypercharger Network and will be the widest and densest electric two-wheeler charging network in the world.
Ola plans to put more than 1 lakh charging points across 400 cities in India. While Ola has not revealed its plan to enter the four-wheeler electric vehicle market, it may as well utilise the very same charging network to promote its vehicles.
Currently, one of the biggest challenges on the road to success for electric vehicles is the charging infrastructure in the country. Even though players like Tata Power have started installing high-capacity chargers across many cities in India, there is still a large portion of the area that do not have any electric vehicle chargers.
Ola had announced last year that it will invest a total of Rs 2,400 crore for setting up Phase 1 of its factory. The new factory will be known as Futurefactory and will be made on a 500-acre site in Tamil Nadu.
At the full capacity of 10 million vehicles annually, the new factory will be the world’s largest two-wheeler factory with a capacity to handle 15% of total production in the world.
