Ola Electric Pauses Production Of Escooters At Tamil Nadu Plant

Electric vehicle maker Ola Electric has suspended production of its electric scooters at Tamil Nadu’s Krishnagiri plant for nearly a week. The company has piled up 4,000 units of electric scooters at its Future Factory.

However, the company cited annual maintenance and installation of new machines as the reason for shutting down the manufacturing plant, the Economic Times reported.

It has been less than a year Ola started production at Future Factory at Krishnagiri in Hosur district, Tamil Nadu. It started trial production in October and regular production in December.

“Like most auto companies that go through annual maintenance at their factories, we did too. At no point can this be considered as shutting down production. Hence, clarifying that (information) is untrue,” an Ola spokesperson said as quoted by ET.

Although Ola has clarified that it was a brief pause, it did not share details of the duration of the suspension, as well as daily production or booking numbers.

Considerably, Ola Electric’s two-wheeler electric vehicles took a hit over the last two months as its vehicle registration numbers witnessed a sharp decline in May-June following the reports of fire incidents.

Its vehicle registrations declined more than 27% to 9,255 units in May from 12,703 units in April and the registrations dropped over 36% MoM in June to 5,883 units.

Earlier this month, Ola Electric said it would invest $500 Mn to set up its Battery Innovation Center (BIC) in Bengaluru, an R&D facility for electric vehicle (EV) battery cells.

“Electric mobility is a high growth sector which is R&D intensive. Ola’s Battery Innovation Center in Bangalore will be the cornerstone for core cell tech development and battery innovation out of India for the world,” Ola Electric founder and CEO Aggarwal said in the statement.