Ola Electric is investing $500 million (about ₹4,000 crore) in a cell research and development facility in Bengaluru, company founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said on Monday.
In a tweet, Mr. Aggarwal stated: “Sharing something I’m personally very passionate about! Building a state-of-the-art Battery Innovation Center (BIC) in Bangalore”.
BIC would be one of the world’s largest, most advanced cell R&D facilities, he added.
“500+ engineers & PhDs, $500mn investment. Will be up & running next month!” Mr. Aggarwal said.
In a statement, the company said the BIC would be one of the world’s largest and most advanced cell R&D facilities with more than 165 unique and cutting-edge lab equipment to cover all aspects of cell-related research and development.
The centre will host lines that can produce all form factors cylindrical, pouch, coin, and prismatic cells, it added.
The innovation centre would have the capabilities to develop complete packages of battery pack design, fabrication and testing under one roof.
BIC would also be equipped with in-house production capability of mg to kg scale of anode and cathode material, an integrated facility for hand-in-hand nano-scale analysis and molecular dynamics simulation and an in-house crystal structure analysis to develop new battery materials.
The company said the R&D centre would recruit top global talent, including 500 PhDs and engineers, who would be supported by an additional 1,000 researchers in India and multiple other global centres.
“Electric mobility is a high growth sector which is R&D intensive. Ola’s BIC in Bangalore will be the cornerstone for core cell tech development and battery innovation out of India for the world,” Mr. Aggarwal noted.
BIC would house advanced labs and high-tech equipment for battery innovation and power India’s journey towards becoming a global EV hub, he added.
Ola recently unveiled its first Li-ion cell NMC 2170. Built in-house, the company would begin mass production by next year.
The company was recently also allocated 20GWh capacity under the ACC PLI scheme by the government for developing advanced cells in India and is setting up a cutting-edge cell manufacturing facility, with an initial capacity of up to 20 GWh, localising the most critical part of the EV value chain.
SoftBank Group-backed company is also in talks with multiple global suppliers to build a battery cell manufacturing plant in India with a capacity of up to 50-gigawatt hours.
As part of its broader electrification push, the firm plans to invest in companies with advanced cell and battery technology, alongside the 50 Gwh battery plant.
Ola Electric needs 40 Gwh of battery capacity to power 10 million electric scooters annually. The remainder will be for its electric cars, which the company plans to manufacture in the future.
