Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said that he plans to change the archaic system of mobility that only favours a few. In a blog post, he shared the vision for the future of mobility that he harbours. He also said that the future of mobility that they call ‘New Mobility’ can be achieved through three pillars -- New Mobility Services, New Energy Vehicles and New Auto Retail.
Aggarwal, whose company recently launched two e-scooter variants, believes that mobility should be “universally accessible, sustainable, personalised and convenient”. It definitely should not be archaic as it is now -- with just 2 per cent or 30 million owning a four-wheeler and only 12 per cent or 160 million owning a two-wheeler. “That means more than a billion people in India have been shut out of mobility by this system!” said Aggarwal.
The Ola CEO invoked Henry Ford whose famous words -- “You can have whatever colour you want, as long as it’s black” -- perfectly describes the current system and one that cannot fly with e-commerce customers anymore.
So here’s how Aggarwal plans to bring on the future he envisions:
New Mobility Services -- Ola currently provides multinodal mobility access with offerings such as taxis, auto rickshaws, two-wheelers, day-hires, outstation rides to as many as 100 million people, which is only 7 per cent of the Indian population. He plans to bring these offerings to all 1.3 billion people through Ola designed EVs, customised for diverse mobility needs. “EVs are 80 per cent cheaper to run so the service will be more affordable and accessible to all,” he said.
Ola will also create a unique mobility persona in its cloud for its users and personalise their experience across shared and personal vehicles. The company has plans to expand to 500 towns and bring shared mobility to 500 million people.
New Energy Vehicles -- As much as 40 per cent of air pollution comes from vehicles, that too when only 15 per cent of India owns a vehicle. The number will grow exponentially, said Aggarwal, adding that they plan to see this through EVs.
“We have already moved forward here with our Futurefactory, the largest 2W factory in the world building the first in our range of scooters – the Ola S1, the best scooter ever made. In the coming quarters we will expand our EV range with more scooters, bikes and cars,” he said.
New Auto Retail -- Not only vehicles, Aggarwal wants to change the way people purchase cars too. “We have already built a powerful digital retail platform that bypasses physical infrastructure and hosted the largest automotive launch in history with the Ola S1. In future we will open up this platform to other OEMs too giving them unparalleled digital distribution,” he said.
Ola will also create a marketplace for used vehicles with real time pricing and digital access. “This is what we’re doing with Ola Cars – reimagining not just buying and selling but the end to end ownership experience of used and new vehicles. Ola Cars is in 30 cities today and will scale up to 100 next year,” he added.
Ola is the only mobility company in the world to do the hardware (EVs), software and service (shared mobility services and auto retail) completely in-house, stated Aggarwal.
Aggarwal said in the blog, “We will lead the development of new technologies and build this future of new mobility to bring a billion people more choice, convenience and affordable mission. This is our mission – mobility for a billion, sustainability for the future!”
Also read: Ola's stellar e-scooter booking numbers: What's behind the demand, and what it means for industry Also read: Ola Futurefactory to be run entirely by women, says Bhavish Aggarwal