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Ola Electric has announced it has raised over $200 million in funding led by global asset manager Falcon Edge Capital, Japan’s Softbank, and other firms, with the electric vehicle maker valued at $3 billion. Ola says the newly secured funding will help the company ‘accelerate the development of other vehicle platforms,’ including its upcoming electric motorcycle, electric car, and scooters that follow its maiden offering, the Ola S1. Right now, Ola is starting its journey in the vehicle manufacturing business with a scooter but eventually plans to have an extensive portfolio of both two- and four-wheelers.
In a tweet published on Thursday evening, Ola Electric CEO Bhavish Aggarwal announced the fund-raising and said India is “building technologies of the future” as it evolves into a “global EV hub.” He also said that he hopes motorists in the country will shun petrol-powered two-wheelers entirely after 2025.
“We’re proud to lead the EV revolution from India to the world. India has the talent and the capability to build future technologies for the industries of the future for the entire world. I thank our existing investors and welcome new ones to Ola. Together we will bring mobility to a billion and sustainability to the future”, added Aggarwal in a subsequent statement.
After finally commencing sales on 15 September, Ola Electric was forced to stop accepting purchase orders on 16 September temporarily. The company claims to have sold scooters worth Rs 1,100 crore in two days, and Tech2 understands the total order bank with Ola Electric for the S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters is more than one lakh units, with bookings running into multiples of lakhs. The purchase window will reopen at the start of November, but prices for the S1 (Rs 99,999) and S1 Pro (Rs 1,29,999) will likely see an upward revision.
Ola has previously said it will commence deliveries straight to buyers’ doorsteps from late October. She is currently in the process of conducting trial production at its sprawling Futurefactory in Tamil Nadu, which the company claims is the world’s largest factory to employ an all-women workforce.
The plant is billed as the world’s largest two-wheeler production facility, spread out over a total of 500 acres of land. Ola’s facility has an annual production capacity of two million vehicles in Phase 1, and that number will rise to ten million cars by next year. At that point, Ola Electric estimates it will be producing a new two-wheeler every two seconds from ten production lines.
While its first product was based on the AppScooter developed by Dutch start-up Etergo (acquired by Ola Electric in 2020), the company is working to create different electric vehicles. It has even appointed former Jaguar chief Wayne Burgess as its vice president of design.
