Ola Group Chairman & CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, recently revealed the brand’s first electric scooter in its final production form as he took it for a spin on Bangalore streets. The eco-friendly scooter is likely to be officially launched in a couple of weeks, maybe by the end of this month.
As mentioned previously, the upcoming e-scooter from Ola will be based on Etergo Appscooter and will borrow most of its design elements from the latter. The ride-hailing platform acquired Netherlands-based Etergo BV in May last year and created its own electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing arm called Ola Electric.
The e-scooter has been spotted testing on multiple occasions in the past few months and Ola claims that it will offer class-leading speed, performance and range. However, Ola has not released any specific details about the e-scooter’s technical specifications yet.
It is also expected to borrow most of its features from its Dutch twin including alloy wheels, spacious under-seat storage, removable Lithium-ion battery, digital instrument console, cloud connectivity and more. Apart from offering best in class features, expect the Ola scooter to also offer best in class range.
Ola is constructing a state-of-art manufacturing facility in Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu which is slated to be the largest two-wheeler factory when completed. In its full operational capability, this plant will have a production capacity of 2 million electric two-wheelers per annum and would generate around 10,000 jobs.
The facility will comply with Industry 4.0 norms and in full capacity, will be capable of producing a scooter every two seconds. As per a recent update, Phase 1 of the manufacturing plant is nearing completion and production is expected to kick start soon.
What remains uncertain is whether the first batch of the upcoming e-scooter will be imported or locally assembled models. According to earlier reports, the first batch of electric two-wheelers will be directly imported from Etergo’s Amsterdam-based facility. More details are expected to surface at the time of its official launch.
The shared mobility startup is also looking to build a wide network of Hypercharging stations and battery swapping facilities to address the range issue of all upcoming electric two-wheelers. After introduction of the revised FAME II policies recently, Ola is expected to keep the price of its e-scooter very competitive. Upon its launch, Ola e-scooter will rival the likes of Ather 450X, Bajaj Chetak and TVS iQube among others.
This post was last modified on July 15, 2021 7:38 pm