Ola Electric Mobility has launched its S1 and S1 Pro electric mopeds. The firm’s ambition to build 15 per cent of the world’s e-mopeds by 2022 got off to a sound start with 300,000 vehicles sold in the first two days.
The 8.5kW Ola S1 is relatively high performance in moped terms. It offers a range of up to 121km with a top speed of 90km/h and a 0-40km/h time of 3.6 seconds.
There’s also an Ola S1 Pro which offers 181km of range with a top speed of 115km/h and a 0-40km/h speed of three seconds.
The vehicle is currently available from INR 80,000 (about £790).
Ola has built a 500-acre factory in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu to manufacture its e-mopeds. The facility will eventually boast a maximum annual production capacity of 10 million units and is being run and managed entirely by women.
> World's largest electric moped factory will be run and managed entirely by women
First Post reports that while a technical hitch had led to the opening of sales being pushed back a week, this arguably did little more than increase interest with over 80,000 orders placed within the first 12 hours.
The purchase window has now temporarily closed and will reopen on November 1 – albeit references to an ‘introductory price’ during the initial sale seem to hint at an imminent hike.
Nevertheless, sales peaked at four a second according to Ola CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal. He believes – seemingly with some justification – that India has huge pent-up demand for two wheeled electric vehicles. The firm also has plans to expand internationally and says it will begin shipping to the US by early next year.
Ola is also rolling out a Hypercharger Network to support its product and is aiming to install 100,000 charging points across 400 cities.
The firm says the chargers will be of sufficiently high speed to charge the Ola Scooter to 50 per cent in just 18 minutes for a 75km range.
The launch was followed by an announcement that over $200m had been raised in a new financing round, reaching a valuation of $3bn – up from $1bn two years ago. The money will go towards developing further two-wheelers, including motorbikes and also electric cars.
