Ola Electric CEO Bhavish Aggarwal on Monday hinted towards the firm developing its own electric car. Quote tweeting a Twitter user who had posted a picture of their Electric Vehicle (EV) collection, which included the Ola Electric S1 Scooter, Agarwal wrote that their next car replacement should be an Ola Electric car.
"Next car replacement should be the Ola electric car," wrote Aggarwal.
Ola Electric's only product out in the market right now is the S1 Scooter. However, Aggarwal's tweet suggests that the electric scooter will soon be joined by an electric car from Ola Electric. In fact, in August 2021, Agarwal had confirmed this in a fun-filled Twitter banter with one of the users, that Ola was looking to make inroads into the electric four-wheeler industry by 2023.
A user asked Agarwal whether he owns petrol, diesel or an electric car under his tweet on the Ola Electric Scooter launch. To this, Agarwal said, "Never owned a car till 2 months ago. Now a hybrid. Next one will be electric in 2023. Ola's electric car."
Ola Electric had opened pre-launch bookings of its electric scooters in July 2021 for Rs 499 to much fanfare. The firm had received 1 lakh orders in just 24 hours.
The scooter comes in 10 colours with an in-house developed 8.5 KW motor and 3.97 kWh battery packs.
The Ola electric scooters S1 and S1 Pro are priced at Rs 99,999 and Rs 1,29,999, respectively (ex-showroom including FAME II subsidy and excluding state subsidies).
After being under pressure from customers for delay in delivery of e-scooters, Ola electric started deliveries on December 16, 2021. The first 100 scooters were delivered to customers in Chennai and Bengaluru.
On January 21, Ola Electric had opened the final payment net window at 6:00 pm on the Ola App for all those customers who have completed the advance payment of Rs 20,000. Last week, Aggarwal had said that Ola electric will dispatch the S1 Scooters across January and February.
Ola Electric's S1 Scooters are being manufactured at the Ola 'Futurefactory'. The plant is a 500-acre site in the Krishnagiri district of Tamil Nadu. The factory will have a capacity to manufacture 2 million e-scooters during its initial phase and up to 10 million units in the future.
Meanwhile, Ola Electric announced on Monday that it has raised $200 million from a clutch of investors including Tekne Private Ventures, Alpine Opportunity Fund, and Edelweiss. The fresh funding round values the company at $5 billion.
Also read: Ola Electric scooter final payment window opens today; check details here
Also read: Ola Electric raises $200 million, valuation zooms to $5 billion