The company had until recently maintained that it would begin deliveries of its scooters later in November. This was already a month behind the delivery schedule that Ola Electric had indicated to prospective buyers when it opened up a
two-day window for bookings in mid-September.
“Due to the ongoing global shortage of chipsets and electronic parts, there are some unavoidable delays to your Ola S1 delivery,” Ola Electric said in an email to a customer. “We apologise for this delay and assure you that we are ramping up production as fast as we can so you can get your Ola S1 at the earliest.” ET has reviewed a copy of the email.
An Ola Electric spokesperson confirmed that the company has informed customers of the delay in deliveries, attributing it to the global chip shortages that have plagued several original equipment manufacturers in India as well as globally.
The earliest delivery timelines for the S1 and S1 Pro will now be Dec. 15-31, even as the company drums up more hype around its vehicles, offering test rides in nine cities including Bengaluru, Mumbai and Delhi and
promising to expand availability of test rides to customers in 1,000 cities by Dec. 15.
“This is the largest ever direct to consumer experience initiative in the history of Indian automotive retail,” Ola said in its mail to customers. “We want to make test rides available to all customers as soon as possible and hence are prioritising allocation of the scooters we produce over the next few weeks for enabling test rides in 1000+ cities across India.”
Two persons who have paid over Rs 20,000 to book the Ola Electric scooters told ET that they did not feel confident that the company would adhere to its revised delivery timeline.
One of the persons added that it was disconcerting that the company would prioritise its limited supplies to give test rides to prospective buyers than speed up deliveries to those who have paid it hard cash. Both persons declined to go on record for fear of their booking being cancelled or delayed further.
Ola Electric had said that it sold scooters worth Rs 1,100 crore in the two day period during which it opened up bookings in September. Even taking Rs 1,29,999 as a base cost— ex-showroom price of the more expensive S1 Pro model excluding state subsidies—that translates to a minimum of around 85,000 bookings for Ola’s scooters.
The company has assured customers that the amount paid for booking, or even the full amount paid, is fully refundable until it actually delivers the vehicle.
Ola is also working to iron out bugs in early production versions of its S1 and S1 Pro, with multiple people and publications that test rode the scooters reporting of a lack of promised features, buggy software, overheating issues and a laggy throttle. The company has said these issues will be rectified before deliveries begin.
