Ola, backed by SoftBank, has decided to set up an electric scooter manufacturing plant in Tamil Nadu India.
The company will therefore compete with businesses like Hero Moto, TVS Motor, Bajaj Auto, and many more start-ups like Okinawa scooters and Ather Energy.
Ola has decided to shift from being just a cab aggregator application to being the biggest electric vehicle manufacturer and car aggregator app too.
The company has signed the Memorandum of understanding (MoU), with the state government regarding their factory.
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Investments:
An investment of ₹2,354 crores will take place and Ola’s pact was a part of Tamil Nadu’s Government’s 18 MoUs, which have the potential to create as many or more than 26,500 jobs. The pact’s commutative investment is worth ₹19,995 crores.
Ola has decided to invest $320 Million in setting up the scooter manufacturing plant, which they call it the biggest electric scooter manufacturing plant which is ready for setup six months after they acquired Etergo, a Dutch start-up.
More advanced manufacturing facilities will be beneficial in showcasing India’s talent and the skill for producing a product catering globally.
The company has mentioned that the factory will create 10,000 jobs and the production of two-wheeler products will be taken place in the factory.
After the company’s subsidiary, Ola electric, turned out to be Unicorn in 2017, Ola started to rapidly shift towards electrical vehicle manufacturing also.
Ola electric was backed by Matrix Partners, Softbank, and Tiger global.
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New Strategies:
Ola electric ramped up its business even during the pandemic and in August 2020, Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman and Group CEO of Ola, informed his employees, through an email, that the company has planned to hire 2,000 more people.
1,000 engineers over the next quarter and another 1,000 will be across other various other functions.
The company has aimed to build a vehicle product and hence they have brought Julien Geffard on board as the Director of the Go-To- Market Strategy.
For targeting the European market, Geffard would be a really good choice since his earlier work as the Global commercial director as well as being a member of the Board of Management at Peugeot Motorcycles will bring in a great exposure of better experience for the Ola members.
He has previously worked with Bentley Motors, BMW and Alpine also.
Motive:
Ola is aiming to galvanize India’s electric vehicle ecosystem and eventually establish India as an important player in terms of EV manufacturing.
Ola has decided that the factory will cater globally including markets of Europe, Asia, Latin America, etc.
Ola has already set up its advanced technology center in the US in 2019. It is a house to the engineers who are working hard on future generation technologies in terms of mobility for catering their services globally.
