SUMMARY
The Ola electric car is expected to be built indigenously on a born-electric skateboard platform with limited range for city commutes
Ola Electric is looking to set up a global design centre for its electric car division in Bengaluru
Ola Electric is already building what it touts to be the world’s largest factory for two-wheelers with an annual production capacity of 10 Mn electric scooters
After foraying into the electric two-wheeler segment with the launch of a factory to manufacture electric scooters in Tamil Nadu, Ola Electric is reportedly planning to enter the electric four-wheeler segment with an indigenously built electric car.
According to a report in Autocar India, the Ola Electric car will be built on a born-electric skateboard platform, which is a type of configuration for an automotive chassis that brings down the cost and complexity of manufacturing an electric vehicle. It’s a self-contained platform with the electronic motors, battery, and driving components integrated into it, and which can be scaled to various sizes and topped with a variety of bodies. The Ola Electric car is expected to have a futuristic design and will fundamentally be a compact city car with limited range, but at a very attractive price.
Sources have told the publication that Ola Electric is looking to set up a global design centre for its electric car division in Bengaluru. The plant will be equipped with all the requisite facilities, including those for clay modelling as well as a CMF (colour, materials and finish) lab. Ola has supposedly also poached a few Tata designers for this project.
To counter the lack of public EV charging infrastructure in India, Ola Electric will look to provide its customers with home charging equipment for its electric cars.
Ola didn’t respond to Inc42’s queries about its electric car plans by the time of publication. This story will be updated if we receive a response.
In December last year, Ola Electric signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Tamil Nadu government for setting up an electric scooter factory in the state. The company is looking to generate an investment of around INR 2,400 Cr for the project which will employ 10K people.
The company claims that the factory will be the world’s largest such for two-wheelers, with a production capacity of 10 Mn such vehicles annually. Further, Ola says that the factory would not only cater to the demand in India but also export the electric scooters to other countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America. The company was said to have begun construction for the factory spread over 500 acres in January.
Inc42 had earlier exclusively reported that Ola Electric plans to launch electric scooters in India and Europe by 2021. These scooters will be priced at around INR 90,000-INR 95,000 per unit. Ola will compete with the likes of Bajaj Auto, Hero Motocorp-backed Ather Energy and TVS with its electric two-wheelers as it looks to sell these vehicles directly to buyers as well as use them in shared mobility.
Besides its vehicle manufacturing plans, Ola Electric is also building the world’s largest electric two-wheeler charging network named Ola Hypercharger Network for its upcoming Ola electric scooter range. The company claims that it will be the widest and densest electric two-wheeler charging network in the world, with more than 100,000 charging points across 400 cities. In the first year alone, Ola is setting up over 5,000 charging points across 100 cities in India, more than double the existing charging infrastructure in the country.
