Ather, Ola and now Simple One are pushing the envelope when it comes to revolutionary innovation
Ola Electric, a unit of the ride-hailing start-up Ola, sold scooters worth over Rs.1,100 crore in a two-day sale of its first range of electric scooters, Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Aggarwal said in a blogpost on Friday.
“This is unprecedented not just in the automotive industry but it is one of the highest sales in a day for a single product in Indian e-commerce history! We truly are living in a digital India,” Aggarwal wrote.
On Thursday, Aggarwal said Ola had run up sales of Rs 600 crore in the first 24 hours, claiming the figure surpassed what the entire two-wheeler industry sells in a day.
“It also established that with the right product, India has huge pent up demand and a massive domestic market for two wheeler EVs (electric vehicles). We must leverage this to drive innovation, a robust local EV ecosystem and make India not only a big EV market, but also a global EV manufacturing hub,” Aggarwal said.
Ola now plans to reopen the sales window on November 1 in time for Diwali. Consumers can book their reservation slots on the Ola Electric website for Rs 499. Those who have already reserved a slot but did not purchase a scooter in the window that closed Thursday will also be able to purchase the product on November 1, the company said.
Ola launched its first electric scooter S1 at a price of Rs 99,999 for the entry-level model and Rs 1,29,999 for the more powerful and long-range S1 Pro last month. It also allowed users to book their reservation slots over the past couple of months and was set to launch the scooters on September 8. The company postponed the sale to September 15 because of technical difficulties.
The company opened only on the Ola app on September 15, prioritizing users based on their dates of reservation. Customers had to make an advance payment of Rs 20,000, with deliveries beginning in October, the company said.
The launch coincided with a new Rs 26,000 crore production linked incentive scheme for the auto and auto components industry announced by the government. Aggarwal praised the scheme on Twitter, saying it would pave the way for India to become a global EV hub.
Earlier this week, Aggarwal also announced that Ola Future Factory would be run entirely by women, 10,000 of whom will be employed when the plant reaches full production capacity, making it the world’s largest women-only factory and the only all-women automotive manufacturing facility across the world.
Ola Electric is setting up a 500-acre factory in Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri with the aim of making 10 million vehicles a year at full capacity, making it the world’s largest two-wheeler factory. In July, it had secured $100 million in long term debt from the Bank of Baroda to close the first phase of development of its factory.
The firm intends to make the scooters available in 1,000 cities simultaneously, unlike its rivals who have taken a phase-by-phase approach by launching e-scooters in dominant markets, namely, Tier 1 cities.
Ola Electric, which was spun out of the ride-hailing major Ola, is valued at over $1 billion, with backing from investors such as Matrix Partners, Tiger Global Management and SoftBank, among others.
Ola’s core ride-hailing unit is also planning to list on stock exchanges soon, for which it raised $500 million from Warburg Pincus and Temasek, giving early backers Tiger and Matrix a part exit from the company.
