Electric scooters have caught on and how! Day 2 of EV era was even better than Day 1, tweeted Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-Founder and CEO, Ola.
Purchase order for Ola S1 and S1 Pro opened on September 15 and sales finally commenced at 8 am on 15 September. On Day 1 Ola Electric has sold “two scooters every second”, tweeted Aggarwal.
In a blogpost, Aggarwal said the excitement and enthusiasm customers showed for the products remained high throughout.
"In total over 2 days, we have done over Rs 1,100 crores in sales! This is unprecedented not just in the automotive industry but it is one of the highest sales in a day (by value) for a single product in Indian e-commerce history! We truly are living in a digital India," he said.
Ola Electric Scooter
The Ola S1 electric scooter comes in two trims -- S1 and S1 Pro -- carrying a price tag of Rs 99,999 and Rs 1,29,999, respectively.
The Ola S1 comes with a range of 181 km, a top speed of 115 km per hour and can be fully charged in less than 40 minutes with a fast charger, and around six hours with the portable charger that will come with the scooter and can be installed at homes.
The scooter comes with various features like reverse mode, hill hold function, driving modes and cruise control and takes less than 3 seconds to cross 0-40 km per hour. It comes with keyless lock and unlock system and safety features like an anti-theft alert system and geo-fencing.
The company has also tied up with banks and financial institutes for an EMI plan starting at Rs 2,999.
The scooter comes in 10 colours with in-house development 8.5 KW motor and 3.97 kWh battery packs. Ola is setting up a manufacturing plant, spread across 500 acres, in Tamil Nadu.
The company has previously said it is investing Rs 2,400 crore for setting up the facility that will create nearly 10,000 jobs and will be the world's largest scooter manufacturing facility upon completion.
Ola FutureFactory
Aggarwal noted that the first phase of the ''Futurefactory'' is nearing completion. "By the end of the month, it is going to be ready. We bought the land in January and we put up the first pillar at April-end," he noted.
The electric scooter factory will be run entirely by women and employ over 10,000 women at full scale.
"Aatmanirbhar Bharat requires Aatmanirbhar women! Proud to share that the Ola Futurefactory will be run ENTIRELY by women, 10,000+ at full scale! It''ll be the largest all-women factory in the world!! Slightly smiling face," Aggarwal said in a tweet.
The company will initially start with 10 lakh annual production capacity and then scale it up to 20 lakh, in line with market demand, in the first phase. When fully completed, the plant is going to have an annual capacity of one crore units that is 15 per cent of the world's entire total two-wheeler production.
Ola Electric would source items like plastics and tyres from outside vendors and for that, it plans to build an entire ecosystem around the factory, he added.
On charging infrastructure, Aggarwal noted that the company would have established presence across relevant cities by the time deliveries commence in October.
Ola charging points
The Ola Scooter will include a home charger that will require no installation and will allow customers to charge their vehicle at home by plugging into a regular wall socket for charging.
In the first year, Ola is setting up over 5,000 charging points across 100 cities in India.
The network will charge 50 per cent of the Ola Scooter battery in 18 minutes for a 75 kms range.
These charging stations will be deployed as stand alone towers as well as in popular locations such as malls, IT parks, office complexes and cafes to ensure that Ola Electric customers always have a charging point nearby.
The Ola Hypercharger network is being built by Ola along with partners. Customers will be able to monitor the charging progress in real time on the Ola Electric app, and seamlessly pay for the charging through the app as well.
