By: CarandBike Team
May 13, 2019 – Ola says that mass scale adoption of electric four-wheelers will take more time and is thus betting big on two and three-wheelers for its electric mobility drive. Ola is expecting to put 10,000 electric vehicles (EVs), a mix of two and three-wheelers, on the road by the end of March 2020.
India’s ride-hailing service provider Ola is reportedly betting big on two and three-wheelers for its electric mobility drive. In fact, the company is expected on deploying 10,000 electric vehicles (EVs), a mix of two and three-wheelers, in India by March 2020.
A PTI report claims that, according to a senior company official, the company believes that mass scale adoption of four-wheeler electric vehicles will take some more time. It was a lesson that the company learnt from Ola and Mahindra’s 2017 joint pilot project in Nagpur, for which the former had partnered with the leading SUV maker for a multi-modal electric mass mobility project. It showed Ola that right now “four-wheelers are not yet ready” for such usage in India on a large scale.
Ola says its joint Pilot with Mahindra in Nagpur showed that four-wheelers are not ready for such usage in India on a large scale, photo credit Ola
Speaking to PTI, Ola Electric Mobility (OEM) co-founder Anand Shah said, “The biggest lesson (from Nagpur) was that, (electric) four-wheelers, are not yet ready. It is going to take a couple of years for the math on four-wheelers to work.”
According to Ola, right now electric three-wheelers / e-Rickshaws are the largest population of EVs by natural adoption. Further, he said, “We think two-wheelers are also emerging very quickly, partially because of policy and also because of the rising interest in the commercial use of two-wheelers, whether that is in deliveries for our own food business or any of our competitors, e-commerce companies or scooter sharing.”
Bhavish Aggarwal – Ola co-founder and CEO
In fact, Ola has already started pilots with a fleet of a hundred of three-wheelers in Gurugram. Considering Mahindra has the Treo e-Rickshaw in its fleet now we wouldn’t be surprised if Ola and Mahindra come together for a new project.
