Ola Electric is all-set to launch the S1 Air, its most affordable electric scooter this month. And it is confident with the slew of launches planned on August 15, its expanded EV portfolio will lead to 100 percent capacity utilisation at its manufacturing plant.
In fact, Anshul Khandelwal, Chief Marketing Officer, Ola tells Financial Express, that the company is already expanding its manufacturing capacity from 0.5 million units to 2 million units in FY2024, and further keep expanding it to its initial target of 10 million units per annum.
It was on August 15, 2021, the company launched its first electric scooter for the Indian market in Bengaluru. The new kid on the block received a mixed response, some positive, while others were critical of its strategy. Right from being critiqued for not being able to meet delivery deadlines, Ola Electric has grabbed a 40 percent market share in the electric two-wheeler space and is showing no signs of stopping. In a short span of time, the company has sold over 2.36 lakh e-scooters in India, averaging retail of over 20,000 units a month.
Despite a slowdown in the overall sales of June for the overall electric two-wheeler segment, Khandelwal believes that this is just a temporary blip, and the sales will bounce back in a matter of months.
“We also said last month that there’s going to be a small blip in the overall growth journey, because, of obvious reasons – revision in FAME 2 subsidies. But it’s really a very short-term blip. Of course, the May sales were slightly an anomaly because of pre-purchases. We are still very confident on the market. Some people typically have come to premature conclusions about the industry, which is sort of unfounded, because we know how consumers are adopting EVs.”
“We are going to launch Ola S1 Air this month which is truly going to disrupt the entire electric scooter market at a price point which will expedite EV penetration, which is our overall goal. And on August 15, we will launch many more products across multiple categories. We have innovated these products from the ground up instead of trying to react to subsidies they were always a part of the pipeline,” shares Khandelwal.
S1 Air, e-motorcycles
One of the key criticisms of Ola Electric when it first launched was unable to meet the delivery deadline. This time, the company says it is fully prepared and so are its suppliers.
“We are prepared for the demand anticipation of S1 Air and the other products that we are going to launch in on August 15. The entire ecosystem is ready from suppliers to our factory or vendors to pretty much everyone,” says Khandelwal.
While he is tight-lipped about the product launches planned for next month, it is rumoured that Ola Electric will showcase electric motorcycles and new scooter range across various price points.
Will Ola Electric look at the sub-Rs 1-lakh electric two-wheeler segment?
“Nothing is a no for us because our goal is very simple. I’m reiterating our goal is to truly dominate the entire category with 100% penetration. If that means that a product has to be launched at less than a lakh rupees, then so be it,” he responds.
Furthermore, Ola Electric is aggressively expanding its experience centres and by August, it aims to have 1,000 such facilities across the country. It has also managed to reduce the delivery time to an average of 2 weeks across India.
