Ola Electric has been consistently making waves in the electric vehicle space, of late. Only four days ago, the mobility start-up announced its plans to open a dedicated global EV design centre in Bengaluru. The centre aims to aid Ola Electric’s foray into making indigenous passenger EVs, with the brand keen on being an early entrant in the EV space.
Now, Ola Electric has roped-in Jaguar design director Wayne Burgess as the Vice President of Design.
For the uninitiated, Burgess has been with Jaguar Land Rover for two decades, where he rose to become design director (Jaguar), headlining their Special Vehicles Operations (SVO). With such a dramatic design portfolio tucked under his arm, Burgess’ inclusion into Ola Electric lends its upcoming products a much-needed mystique.
While details about its four-wheeler project are sketchy at best, the brand does intend to launch a compact and affordable electric car, relatively soon. This has come as news to many, since Ola Electric had thus far channelled its entire energy towards setting-up its Rs 2400 crore e-two-wheeler factory in Tamil Nadu. According to CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, the facility is going to be the world’s largest two-wheeler factory, with the aim to produce an electric scooter every two seconds.
Ola Electric has been in the running for becoming a one-stop electric mobility solution for some time now. Back in 2017, the brand was planning to introduce a battery-electric model of a custom-made Tata Nano to its fleet. Unable to do so, the cab aggregator then briefly used Mahindra E2o models in its fleet.
That marked the brand’s foray into the electric ecosystem, which, three years later, it’s set to revolutionise. With a floor plan to set-up the densest charging network, the Ola Hypercharger Network (much like Tesla’s famed Supercharger network, except for two-wheelers) intends to provide over 100,000 charging points across the country, (according to a report by Business Standard).
With two global design headquarters set-up, an automotive design heavyweight on their payroll and e-two-wheeler manufacturing at a scale thus far unseen, Ola Electric is all set to disrupt the burgeoning electric mobility space in India, like never before.
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
