Ola Electric has communicated to buyers of its first electric scooters, the Ola S1 and S1 Pro, that it will commence test rides in phases from 10 November onwards. In a bid to stick to its original promise of letting buyers experience the e-scooters before putting down their money for it, Ola Electric has also pushed the date for the full and final payment for the scooter to 10 November, the same day test rides commence.
Deliveries of the Ola Electric S1 and S1 Pro scooters is likely to commence in the second half of November. Image: Ola Electric
The date for the final payment has been pushed from the original date given to those who made bookings, which was today, 18 October. Despite delaying the final payment date, Ola Electric maintains delivery timelines will remain unchanged. However, deliveries of the Ola S1 and S1 Pro are only likely to begin sometime in the second half of November, later than Ola’s original promise of delivering the scooters October onwards.
Between 15 and 16 September – the two days the purchase window was open for – Ola Electric claims to have sold scooters worth Rs 1,100 crore, and Tech2 understands the total order bank with Ola Electric for the S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters at present is in excess of one lakh units, with bookings running into multiples of lakhs. The purchase window will reopen for fresh orders next month, but prices for the S1 (Rs 99,999) and S1 Pro (Rs 1,29,999) are likely to see an upward revision.
The S1 and S1 Pro are only the first in a range of electric two-wheelers Ola Electric plans to launch in the coming years. Image: Ola Electric
Ola Electric is currently in the process of conducting trial production at its sprawling Futurefactory in Tamil Nadu, which the company claims is the world’s largest factory to employ an all-women workforce. According to a PTI report, Ola Electric recently raised $200 million in funding at a valuation of $5 billion, a significant jump over the $100 million funding raised in a round led by global asset manager Falcon Edge Capital, Japan’s Softbank and other firms at the end of September.
The plant is billed the world’s largest two-wheeler production facility, spread out over a total of 500 acres of land. Ola’s facility has an annual production capacity of two million vehicles in Phase 1, and that number will rise to ten million vehicles by next year. At that point, Ola Electric estimates it will be producing a new two-wheeler every two seconds from ten production lines.
While its first product was based on the AppScooter developed by Dutch start-up Etergo (acquired by Ola Electric in 2020), the company is working to develop different types of electric vehicles, and has even appointed former Jaguar design chief Wayne Burgess as its vice president of design.