A lot of things appear to have changed for Ola Electric exactly one year after its scooters the Ola S1 and the S1 Pro made their debut. To begin with, CEO Bhavish Aggarwal doesn’t do live press conferences anymore. This is Ola Electric’s first virtual event with a series of projects that have been teased over social media for some time, finally breaking cover.
Aggarwal’s usual hyperbolic rhetoric was deployed instantaneously with claims about Ola Electric singularly ushering in the age of electric mobility, in a country where brands like Hero Electric continue to see greater month-on-month demand. Still, Ola Electric’s graph appears to be on the rise, with a recently launched OS2 and steadily growing demand. This brings us to the first announcement
The Ola S1
It’s not a particularly good look for a brand that has to re-launch an identical product a year after it was originally launched. So the arrival of the Rs 99,999 S1 isn’t revelatory by any means. The S1 was temporarily put on hold after a series of electronic issues forced Ola Electric to sell the more powerful S1 Pro version only. In any case, the S1 Pro witnessed much greater demand and S1 customers were “upgraded” to the S1 Pro, albeit after paying the balance amount.
Also Read: Ola’s maiden e-car to give 500 km range on a single charge, says CEO Bhavish Aggarwal
The S1’s arrival is long overdue and brings nothing new to the Ola Electric portfolio, which is why Aggarwal got it out of the way first. As such the Ola S1 will run on the same software, a smaller 3kwh battery, and feature the same exterior design
Ola Electric claims that deliveries will begin by Sep 7. What’s new, however, is a range of colours, cash payment options, and an extended warranty pack of 5 years, the latter being available to exist Ola Electric customers through the Ola Electric app.
The fine print
However, mild discrepancies were still visible, with Aggarwal announcing that the S1 will have an ARAI-certified range of 141 km and an EcoMode, “true range” of 128km. No electric scooter at present can claim to have a true range that’s only 3km less than the ARAI-certified one. Usually, the difference is nearly 30%. For example, Ather’s latest Gen3 450X claims to have an ARAI range of 146km, but the scooter’s Eco Mode TrueRange (a term coined by Ather) is 105km.
Ola’s S1 claims to do 101km in its “Normal Mode” which doesn’t come with the usual speed restrictions that Eco Mode does, so the brand’s range claims, as always, need to be verified. While its claims of 95kph top speed are more reasonable, it remains to be seen how sustainable those speeds are.
Read More: Ola Electric unveils new electric two-wheeler Ola S1, set to launch electric cars by 2024
OS3
Ola also claimed that its OS3 is ready for deployment, although a specific date wasn’t shared. What has been shared, however, is the fact that it will be hyper charging enabled, will feature visual moods, digital key sharing, proximity unlock, digital document display, improved regenerative capacity, multiple profiles, calling, voice assistance, and something called “Party Mode” which wasn’t explained in detail.
A lot of these features were announced and promised with the first batch of Ola e-scooters last year, as upgrades one could download over time. However now, as it was then, the lack of a specific timeline makes it hard to ascertain just when Ola can deliver these features and whether all of them will be made available at once.
Locally manufactured lithium-ion battery cell
Claiming that the country needs 2000gWh of cell capacity, Aggarwal made Ola Electric’s biggest announcement yet, albeit one that was made over a month ago. Aggarwal rightly claimed that India missed the boat when it came to semiconductor manufacturing and that he doesn’t intend to let Ola Electric, or the country for that matter, miss the cell manufacturing revolution.
Aggarwal emphasised that manufacturing EV cells at scale, can give the country the edge it needs. As such Ola has come up with a truly impressive cell manufacturing facility, dubbed the Ola Battery Innovation Centre spanning half a million square feet. Ola claims that the lab features cell characterisation machines, with wet and dry labs putting cells through extreme temperature tests along with a battery of other tests conducted by the 200 employees working there. The mic drop moment? Aggarwal claims that Ola’s home-grown battery module will be powering the brand’s products by the end of 2023. If Ola Electric can pull it off, it’ll be a major leap forward for the Indian market.
Read More: Ola Electric unveils new electric two-wheeler Ola S1, set to launch electric cars by 2024
However...
Although battery commodity prices have come down over the last decade-and-a-half, the over-mining of lithium and cobalt has witnessed an unprecedented rise in battery costs that isn’t likely to evaporate anytime soon. As EV manufacturers and battery giants like LG, Panasonic. Aggarwal claims that consumers will witness a 50% reduction in battery costs, with fast charging speeds and overall range going up by 3-4 times. While he addressed the issue of supply chain security in the long run, with the introduction of elements like sulphur, sodium, and silicon lessening the lithium and cobalt content, there’s still no clear floor plan for solving the current supply constraints that could see prices remaining high for the foreseeable future.
The Ola Electric Car
The Ola Electric card story began last year, with Aggarwal promising a functioning prototype by 2023. After showing renderings of a hatchback EV, we quickly began seeing 2D models of what was clearly an electric sedan in photographs tweeted by Aggarwal.
Although many expected to see a non-functioning prototype to break cover in today’s announcement, Ola did finally reveal a Tesla Model 3-like EV concept design, showcased through a CGI clip. The car, when production ready in 2024, will allegedly have a range of 500km (a feat currently only accomplished by Tesla, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz with significantly higher R&D budgets). It claims to have a range of over 500km, acceleration from 0-100 in 4 seconds and will be the fastest, most advanced car ever manufactured from scratch in India. Ola Electric also claims that when the FutureFactory is finished, it will have an additional 200 acres dedicated exclusively for Ola Electric cars, and will build 6 different models across 2 platforms.
Tall claims
To begin with, Aggarwal stated that the FutureFactory when fully complete (timeline uncertain) will be the largest two-wheeler factory. Now, however, he claims that the factory is being expanded to accommodate the production of a staggering 1 million cars and 10 million 2-wheelers. At present, only manufacturing giants like Maruti Suzuki, which has been operational for nearly four decades, have reached a collective production capacity of 2 million. Other carmakers like Hyundai India, having been operational for 25 years, do not produce cars at such a rate. Ola Electric’s claims of producing such a number of cars, appear far-fetched, to say the least. Furthermore, even though it claims to target a 10 million production capacity for scooters, upon completion (whenever that is) it must be stated that, at present, Ola Electric has sold only 50,000 scooters in a year.
Ola Electric’s scope continues to remain very impressive, as does Aggarwal’s vision for electric mobility in the country. However, a year full of false promises does raise the question as to just how feasible these grand plans are. Even if accomplished in a span of 10 years, these are impressive goals to have, but for now, we’ll take it with a pinch of salt.
Also read: 75 vehicles that shaped the Indian automotive industry
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