India's love for scooter is as strong as the Jugalbandi of Jai-Veeru and Munna Bhai-Circuit. And, why not?
Selling 21.19 million units in 2019, India's two wheeler market is the largest in the world. It commands more than 1/3rd of the global sales!
And, Ola Electric is all set to electrify the space…
It is planning to set up the world's largest electric scooter factory at Rs. 2,400 crores. The factory will have an annual capacity of 2 million, which will be scaled to 10 million by as early as next year.
The world is moving towards electric, so the move makes sense.
Also, e-scooters will only cost Rs.0.30 per km to operate as against the charge of Rs.3 per km of a traditional scooter.
In spite of that, only 143,837 units were sold in FY 2021. Even at pre-covid level the sales stood at only 152,000 units in FY 2020.
So, is Ola Electric over-estimating its capabilities? How is it so confident?
Number 1: Aggressive pricing
The traditional scooters are priced around Rs. 60-80k as against electric vehicles, that are priced at Rs. 1-1.2 lakh.
Ola Electric plans to chose such a price that makes it affordable for many people to buy the vehicle.
Number 2: Leaving no stone unturned to create the most awesome vehicle
They are hiring the best of the best in the industry. Their new head of vehicle design has worked on several models of Jaguar. Former GE India head will be their chief human resource officer.
They want to make a scooter that is feature-rich and high-quality. How?
The company is not merely assembling parts to manufacture the scooters.
It has taken the longer route of building the product from scratch (vertical integration). This also makes them resilient and puts them in control of the cost.
Number 3: By solving "Murgi pehle ki Andaa?" problem of the EV space.
Electric vehicles without a proper charging infrastructure serve no purpose. There were only 933 electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in India by June 2020. This leads to resistance in adoption.
Now, Ola plans to change that.
All by itself.
Here's what the founder announced:
Similar to how Tesla grew in the United States. They built a nationwide charging infrastructure even before its cars became popular.
While other companies waited in line for someone else to make the first move, Ola Electric came on top.
Will it get the first mover advantage, or will other big players tramp on its infrastructure to take the bigger piece of the cake?
Thousands of readers get our daily updates directly on WhatsApp! 👇 Join now!