In what will perhaps be marked as one of the most significant push by an Indian private player into the electric vehicle category, Ola has spun off its Electric business as a separate unit. Christened ‘Ola Electric Mobility’, the unit has now raised $56 Million (close to 400 crores) from Ola’s early backers — Tiger Global and Matrix India. Reports also suggest that the initial founding capital for this business was provided by Ola itself.
Push for electric vehicles is now a known phenomena in India. The current Government led by BJP — largely seen as pro-tech and pro-industries — has often mulled the idea of a fully electric public transport fleet. The Government had in fact announced plans to ensure 30% of all vehicles on Indian roads are electric by 2030. No policy however is out yet on the same.
For Ola, the company has been pushing its Electric mobility business for quite some time now. In as early as 2017, Ola had announced a full electric fleet in Nagpur, in partnership with Mahindra. The company had also announced that it will be adding many more electric cars, rickshaws as well as buses to its fleet.
Last year, the company announced plans to induct as many as 10.000 electric vehicles to its fleet. More similar projects have been implemented with an intent to achieve a highly ambitions — 1 million EVs by 2020 — goal. Spinning out an entirely new entity for the same underlines the massive importance EVs hold for Ola’s business.
The separate business entity will also not just revolve around electric vehicles. It will also be deeply involved in developing relevant infrastructure for charging of commercial EVs at scale and will also work on developing charging solutions.
The spun out business also has a separate executive altogether. According to an official announcement by the company, the new business will be led by Ola executives Anand Shah and Ankit Jain,. It also has an independent charter to develop platforms and infrastructure to make electric mobility, a reality at scale. Building on various pilot initiatives and evolving market dynamics, the company is primarily focused on deploying charging and battery swapping networks focused on the commercial electric vehicle segment.
Ola Electric has already partnered with several OEMs and battery manufacturers and intends to work closely with the automotive industry to create seamless solutions for electric vehicle operations.
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