Ola Electric has announced plans for a new charging network ahead of the launch of its new electric moped, the Ola Scooter. The Indian firm says that the Ola Hypercharger Network will be the largest and densest electric two-wheeler charging network in the world, comprising 100,000 charging points across 400 cities.
In March, Ola announced that it was building a 500-acre, fully-automated factory in Tamil Nadu to manufacture the Ola Scooter with an annual production capacity of 10 million units.
Even in a country of a billion people, that’s a big number. But there is one obvious hurdle.
"To get adoption of electric vehicles, a strong charging network is required,” said group CEO Bhavish Aggarwal. “Today, one of the key infrastructure gaps in our country is the charging network.”
Ola is therefore looking to set up over 5,000 charging points across 100 Indian cities inside a year – more than doubling the country’s current capacity. These charging points will be in standalone towers, but also in shopping centres, commercial parks, office blocks and cafes.
The firm promises that it’ll also be high speed, with the ability to charge the Ola Scooter to 50 per cent in just 18 minutes for a 75km range. (The vehicle will come with a home charger too.)
Customers will monitor the charging process and pay for it through an app.
“Electric is the future of mobility and we are reimagining the entire user experience of owning an electric vehicle,” said Aggarwal. “Our plans to build a comprehensive charging network is a key piece of this. By creating the world’s largest and densest two-wheeler charging network, we will dramatically accelerate the customer adoption of electric vehicles and rapidly move the industry to electric.”
The Ola Scooter is due to go on sale in July.
