Bhavish Aggarwal looks out over a 500-acre expanse ringed by neon-painted houses, small shrines, and mango groves. On this empty plot on the Bangalore’s outskirts, the high-profile Ola founder hopes to erect the world’s largest electric scooter plant within the next 12 weeks, producing around 2 million per year — a milestone for one of the India’s largest start-ups.
Aggarwal’s proposed $330 million mega-factory, located two and a half hours southeast of Bangalore, is a bold foray into uncharted territory for an entrepreneur who has spent ten years creating a ride-hailing behemoth. This is his follow-up, Ola Electric is entering an electric vehicle market crowded with names like Tesla Inc. and China’s Nio Inc., albeit with a modest two-wheeler at first, but with the potential to play in a $200 billion domestic EV industry in a decade.
More than 3,000 robots will operate alongside 10,000 people at Ola’s plant. The job will be divided up using software developed by the company’s 1,000-member team, which is mainly made up of engineers. The factory’s roof would be solar-paneled, making it carbon-negative. Around half of the scooter components will be made at two supplier parks on either end of the complex.
If all goes according to plan, his Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. Ltd Company aims to produce 10 million vehicles per year, or 15% of the world’s e-scooters, by the summer of 2022, with sales beginning later this year in other countries. After the plant expands next year, one EV scooter will be released every two seconds. It’s the first step toward Aggarwal’s aim of eventually producing a full range of electric vehicles to support Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Make in India and sustainable mobility goals.
Last week, in an interview, the 35-year-old said, “It’s a vehicle we’ve engineered from the ground up so India can get a place at the world EV table.”
Aggarwal is entering the market at a time when commute hailing’s business is slowing due to the pandemic. In India’s notoriously polluted cities, exhaust scooters and motorcycles remain the most common mode of transportation. However, the country is now promoting electric vehicles and battery self-sufficiency, which, according to the CEEW Centre for Energy Finance, could support a $206 billion EV market in ten years.
That isn’t going to be fast. Middle-class Indians are concerned about air pollution, but they are hesitant to pay twice as much for an electric scooter at current prices. Not only will Aggarwal face competition from local rivals Hero MotoCorp and Bajaj Auto, but also from up-and-comers like Ather Energy and Chinese brands like Niu Technologies.
