Ola chief executive Bhavish Aggarwal said on September 13 that Ola FutureFactory would be run entirely by women employing over 10,000 women at full capacity. Aggarwal said this would make it the world’s largest women-only factory and the only all-women automotive manufacturing facility across the world.
"This is the first in a series of initiatives we are undertaking at Ola to create a more inclusive workforce and provide economic opportunities for women across the board. We have invested significantly to train and upskill them in core manufacturing skills and they will be responsible for the entire production of every vehicle manufactured at Ola Futurefactory" Aggarwal said in a blogpost.
Interestingly, while Ola plans to only hire women for its factory, the company's senior leadership team lacks similar representation. The top 15 executives at the company are male.
This comes nearly a month after Ola launched its first electric scooter S1, at a price of Rs 99,999 for the entry-level S1 model and Rs 1,29,999 for the more powerful and long-range S1 Pro.
Ola Electric is setting up a 500-acre factory in Tamil Nadu's Krishnagiri, with an aim to make 10 million vehicles a year at full capacity- making it the world's largest two-wheeler factory. In July this year, it had secured a $100 million in long term debt from Bank of Baroda to close the first phase of development of its factory.
The firm, which was spun out of the ride-hailing major Ola, intends to make the scooters available in 1,000 cities simultaneously, unlike its rivals who have taken a phase-by-phase approach by launching e-scooters in dominant markets, namely, Tier 1 cities.
Ola Electric also plans to invest $2 billion over the next five years along with its partners to set up more than 1 lakh charging stations across 400 cities. Last month, Aggarwal said that they may have to set up more than the planned 5,000 charging points across 100 cities in India, although he didn't specify the number of charging stations already built.
"For India to be the world’s manufacturing hub, we must prioritize upskilling and generating employment for our women workforce. Ola Futurefactory is one step towards our vision of the world’s future – a world with clean mobility, a carbon-negative footprint, and an inclusive workforce. We will continue to take steps that get us closer to achieving each of these across Ola and encourage others to join us so we can accelerate India’s progress" Aggarwal said in the blogpost.
Ola Electric is valued at over a billion dollars, with the backing from investors such as Matrix Partners, Tiger Global Management and SoftBank, among others. Ola’s core ride-hailing unit is also planning to list on stock exchanges soon, for which it raised $500 million from Warburg Pincus and Temasek, giving early backers Tiger and Matrix a part exit from their stake in the company too.
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