Ola to invest $100 mn in setting up a vehicle design, engineering centre in UK

Mobility giant Ola has announced setting up of a global centre for advanced engineering and vehicle design in Coventry, UK with an investment of $100 million, as per an official announcement. Ola is also aiming to set up a battery manufacturing facility in India with another huge investment corpus, top sources told Business Today.

This will be subject to the Ola Electric winning the bid under the production-linked incentive scheme of the Indian government. The $100 million investment into Ola's new engineering and vehicle design centre will happen over the course of five years, and Ola will staff it with over 200 designers and automotive engineers.

The centre will also partner with world class education and research institutions in the UK to collaborate on technology research and development, the company said.

On Tuesday, BT reported that Ola is scouting for land to set up a future factory for its ambitious Ola Electric car and is also planning further expansion of its design and production facilities post a $200 million capital raise. Ola’s CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal on Tuesday tweeted a picture of a porotype of the Ola Electric car, which , as per sources, is one of the few concept designs laid out by the engineering team .

“At Ola we are building the future of mobility and continue to attract the best global talent across disciplines. Ola Futurefoundry will enable us to tap into the fantastic automotive design & engineering talent in the UK to create the next generation of electric vehicles. Futurefoundry will work in close collaboration with our headquarters in Bengaluru, India to help us build the future of mobility as we make EVs affordable across the world,” Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Ola said.

“We want to create a world class design and R&D team with global sensibilities. Ola Futurefoundry is an important step in building a multi-disciplinary team that is agile, flexible, and responsive to the various needs of our consumers around the world. We are setting up in Coventry a global epicenter of automotive and technology talent. Futurefoundry will supplement and collaborate with our core team in Bangalore, India to deliver exciting new EVs across two-wheeler, four-wheeler and other form factors.” said Wayne Burgess, Vice President of Vehicle Design, Ola Electric.

Ola Futurefoundry will work in-synch with the design and engineering teams based at Ola Campus in Bengaluru India. It will house global talent across multiple disciplines of 2W and 4W vehicle design, advanced high-performance automotive engineering, digital & physical modeling and more. It will also house talent that will focus on vehicle R&D around new energy systems, including cell technologies, as per an official statement.