On the occasion of India’s 75th Independence Day, Ola Electric will announce its next product. There’s speculation that the product could be the company’s first electric car, though Ola Electric has not confirmed anything so far. Ola launched the Ola S1-series electric scooters on the same day last year and now, a new tweet by CEO Bhavish Aggarwal hints at the company’s next big EV (Electric Vehicle).
“Super excited to announce a new product this 15th August,” Aggarwal said in the tweet, adding that the company will share more about its ‘future plans’ on the same day.
Super excited to announce a new product this 15th August!
Will also share more about our BIG future plans!!
Do watch the livestream. Sharing time and link soon. pic.twitter.com/mqWcilqoFW
— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) August 4, 2022
While it isn’t confirmed if the new product will be a car, Aggarwal had teased the same earlier this year in a tweet dated January 25. The tweet said “Can you keep a secret?” and shared an image a a futuristic looking vehicle, very much resembling a small hatchback car.
It is unclear if this is the design the Ola car will come with, but the car in the image does feature an Ola logo on the front. This was followed by another teaser where Aggarwal mentioned Ola was building the sportiest car in India.
Can you guys keep a secret? 🤫🤫 pic.twitter.com/8I9NMe2eLJ
— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) January 25, 2022
We’re going to build the sportiest car ever built in India! 🏎🏎🏎 pic.twitter.com/IyMKgQvTOi
— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) July 16, 2022
Concerns over quality and other issues
If Ola does end up launching an electric car, it will have to pay attention to a number of challenges apart from going up against heavyweights like Tata, Hyundai and MG and others. These include quality control and thermal performance. The Ola S1 and S1 Pro scooters faced a lot of issues after launch where customers received damaged and defective units even after waiting months to pick up their vehicle.
In the summer of 2022, over a dozen cases of electric vehicles catching fire spontaneously came up. These included electric scooters from Ola Electric as well as other brands like Okinawa, Pure EV and Jitendra EV. The incidents also pushed Ola Electric into recalling over 1400 units of the S1 series.
!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s)
{if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?
n.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};
if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;n.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version=’2.0′;
n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;
t.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];
s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window, document,’script’,
‘https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/fbevents.js’);
fbq(‘init’, ‘444470064056909’);
fbq(‘track’, ‘PageView’);
