Strongly believe scooter market will be all electric in next 2 years: Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal

Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola, Ola Electric

India's scooter market will most likely transform into an all-electric one in the next two years, and in order to make that a reality, there has to be the right products at the right cost structures along with supply chain availability, said Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal.

“Today, Ola Electric is India's No. 1 EV company by revenue, bigger than even four-wheeler EV companies,” says Aggarwal, who spoke with CNBC-TV18 on April 28 and discussed the electric vehicle (EV) scenario of India with a focus on Ola.

From a cab-hailing service to a stalwart with 3 profitable businesses, Aggarwal says that Ola’s journey has been different from its startup peers.

“Today, Ola has three companies in the group. Ola Rideshare is the largest B2C in India that is very profitable. We are one of the few B2C companies to be profitable at scale in India. About four or five years ago, we started focusing on profits. As our business model is profitable, we were able to survive the COVID period. Then about three-and-a-half years ago, I started Ola Electric,” he said.

Interestingly, despite being in the market since January 2022, Ola's Electric vehicle (EV) sales have led the business segment to become “India's No. 1 EV company by revenue, bigger than even four-wheeler EV companies,” said Aggarwal, who started Ola Electric with the aim that all of Ola’s automobiles will be electric in four years.

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To be different from peers in the EV segment, Aggarwal said that Ola designed a different, three-pronged business model, which includes two-wheelers, cars, and its own fundamental cell technology, which Aggarwal claims that no other OEM in India is currently building.

“We started off with the two-wheelers, a scooter market. It was clear that the first product, which will get mass adoption, is the scooter because of the urban nature of the product. But eventually, the grand vision says to make all mobility electric. And that's how the last one-and-a-half years played out. We're only in scooters and planning to launch a few more scooter products over the next two quarters,” said Aggarwal.

Ola is targeting to build a complete scooter portfolio for target customers ranging from premium to mid to mass, by August 15, 2023. Aggarwal expects this to be a forerunner to making the entire country’s two-wheelers electric. Though he admits this sounds aggressive, he emphasises that Ola is striving to convert all of India’s two-wheelers to electric by the end of 2025, with the help of technological innovations backed by its prowess in cell technology. “We haven't done a JV for technology with anybody; we built our own technology,” he said.

Speaking about the developments of Ola’s cell business, Aggarwal said that the cell factory is under construction and will be ready by the end of this year, with an expected scale of 100gWh (which is as big as the world’s largest cell factory – the LG cell factory in Poland).

Commenting on its IPO plans, Aggarwal says that delaying the Ola IPO was not an issue as all three of its businesses are profitable. However, the company plans to get its ride-sharing business listed sometime next year.