Ola Electric has about 4000 units of scooters piled up at the plant, which it calls ‘Future Factory,’ not counting several thousands of units which are ready to be shipped to customers who have pre-ordered the scooter. According to a source in the know, at the time Ola Electric stopped the line on July 21, its daily production was around 100 units against a current installed capacity of 600.
Ola started trial production at the plant, which is called ‘Future Factory’ at Krishnagiri in Hosur district, Tamil Nadu, in October and regular production in December. It has only been around eight months since the production started in earnest.
“Like most auto companies that go through annual maintenance at their factories, we did too. At no point can this be considered as shutting down production. Hence, clarifying that (information) is untrue,” an Ola spokesperson responded to a query from ET Prime. The company did not clarify on daily production or booking numbers. It did not elaborate on the duration of the suspension of production but maintained it was brief.
Ola Electric, which initially won around 150,000 bookings with advance payments, thanks to its aggressive pre-launch marketing, has had to go through a high number of cancellations following complaints about the performance and quality of the vehicles. The company started delivering its scooters from late December. Within the first few months an incident of fire involving an Ola scooter triggered widespread criticism and a government inquiry.
