[Guna]

Just wondering.....did Mr. Hormazd get upset because Bhavish's tweet robbed the auto journals an opportunity to carry a 'scoop' about Ola Electric getting in to 4 wheelers . This definitely showed them to be totally clueless.
BTW I feel that what Bhavish has posted is just a teaser and the actual car design will be revealed in a big event.

[udaikalra01]

Originally Posted by Guna

Just wondering.....did Mr. Hormazd get upset because Bhavish's tweet robbed the auto journals an opportunity to carry a 'scoop' about Ola Electric getting in to 4 wheelers . This definitely showed them to be totally clueless.
BTW I feel that what Bhavish has posted is just a teaser and the actual car design will be revealed in a big event.

Everyone knows that Ola is working on 4 wheelers. It was revealed even before they laid the foundation of their 2 wheeler manufacturing facility. It's just that Bhavish is now sharing some early renders to get hype around the product in development. And even the render looks FAAAR from production. Actual car might not even look like that. It's just for the hype.

[Venkatesh]

Bhavish Aggarwal is choking Ola. Insiders blame a toxic culture and a distrustful CEO who can’t let go.

insiders also say he is distrustful, insists on signing off on the smallest of details, can’t focus on one thing for too long and keeps moving from one project to another.

Ola makes outlandish promises, and all the media houses lap them up without asking questions. There is a FOMO that if they did a critical story, Bhavish would not talk to them, not that he does it anyway,” says the second former executive, also requesting anonymity. “Can you imagine creating the kind of hype that Ola created around the electric scooter without even having a product? But Bhavish did it

“Bhavish hired people, doubled their salaries and gave them an unrealistic timeline,” says this executive. “People told him it wasn’t possible, but he wouldn’t listen. He fired them instead. So the rest of them lied. That’s what has led to the launch debacle.”

As the 8 September deadline loomed and it became clearer that an announcement was almost impossible because the website wasn’t ready, Ola Electric brought an engineer from Ola Financial Services to fix the website overnight, which didn’t happen. “So the next day, he was fired because Bhavish had to publish an apology,” recalls this executive

Still, the bigger problem isn’t the past but the future. A scooter will be delivered, just like it was launched, despite multiple issues. “But most likely, it will be a shitty product which can break down anytime,” he says.

Full Article

[fhdowntheline]

I think that jibe was totally unnecessary. Its alright to feel you are creating a revolution, but that should be an organic process. Develop product and service quality, sustain it for a few years and earn the right to confer labels on others, if at all.
Disruptive innovation doesn't just mean coming up with gee-whiz strategies to utilize investor funds.

[audioholic]

Well now #petrolMedia has caught up and many journos are hitting Bhavish where it hurts. They have valid points to make and I am not sure what was going on in his mind when he made this cheap comeback. Guess this was not what he expected for sure

[Livnletcarsliv]

Is Ola another Tesla? Definitely a big NO.
What I see is that Elon is more of a Hands-On person than Bhavish. And Bhavish is just a pure businessman and not a problem solver/solution thinker like Elon. The thought process of Elon is more visionary whereas the thought process of Bhavish is more towards building a business brand.

Other than this, Ola's/Bhavish's primary objective as an automotive start-up is to create a brand impact and of course, attract more and more funding. And there is nothing wrong with that as a start-up founder. But what matters also is the commitment towards the existing product line-up which I don't see at all from Ola.

Regarding Hormazd's comment, there is nothing wrong either. No automaker will jump the gun when their existing business is facing a lot of challenges/issues. For that matter, Ather which is already a proven product in the market only focuses on improving its current range and developing better 2 wheelers. Ola still has a long way to prove itself as 2 wheeler maker before getting into 4 wheeler's which is totally a different ball game altogether, especially when all the traditional 4 wheeler brands of the world are facing production issues, emission regulations, other challenges, etc.
So it totally makes sense for Hormazd (being an industry veteran) to talk FOR CUSTOMERS and FOR INDUSTRY to keep in check, this kind of misleading brand marketing.

[akhilesh]

Originally Posted by deetjohn

LOL
You don't need me to tell you how many times Elon tried to kill Tesla off with hasty and super aggressive decisions which weren't logical or practical at all!

What is actual basis of your insinuation that "Elon tried to kill Tesla off"? The shareholders are happy, the company sold almost a million cars this year, a YOY growth of 87% in a crippling pandemic when every other automaker is struggling and they even made $2.3bn this year with 30% margin, unheard of in the car industry. Oh and he is still the CEO by the way. So who is this Elon Musk that we do not know?

Originally Posted by deetjohn

Not so long ago, the mighty Tesla was bleeding from quarter to quarter all thanks to Elon' plan for 'world domination'.

They have been profitable for two year in a row now even though they are reinvesting in two giga factories - in Texas and in Berlin while also increasing capacity in China, all this in a pandemic. Care to elaboarte.

Originally Posted by deetjohn

The employees suffered, both customers & suppliers were put under extreme agony, the real founders of Tesla quit... the list is endless.

How does it matter? Steve Jobs is no longer with Apple. Check how Apple has done in the last almost decade or so since Steve Jobs died. Is Tesla performing worse YOY? Have their share prices crashed? It may be an endless list but that hasnt stopped Tesla at all and makes me wonder what good is it anyway.

Originally Posted by deetjohn

I would say Elon' plan to go ahead with the Model 3 is as BIG if not bigger than OLA' plan to build a car! Trust me, Tesla was in no shape or form to get that done back then. But, Elon got it done and people are back with their rose tinted glasses.

This is an actual LOL. Ola isnt even where Tesla was in 2008 when they launched their first electric car. Ola hasnt. Model 3 was a production hell which Tesla overcame due to sheer will power, clever engineering and vertical integration. Do you even know the ethos of Tesla? What they are trying to do? Or how most of Elon companies are challenging the status quo in each industry and beating the behemoths are their own game.

Sorry but I wont be participating further in this discussion because you have got nothing that I havent heard or do not already know. Agree to disagree.

[avishar]

When I see articles like this, it is difficult not to bat for Ola, as detestable as Bhavish sometimes acts.

https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/au...e-7988541.html

Ola Electric car is a premature pet project that won’t run on hype alone
The electric car is a possible mirage to amuse investors and potential customers. Ola should get its electric scooter — which is in a shambles — right first

[udaikalra01]

If you look at first ride reviews of Ola scooter, you'd know that journalists have been nice to Ola. They were given unfinished scooters with most features of the infotainment disabled, Hyper mode wasn't working in many scooters, they were allowed to test it on a limited stretch of track in rainy conditions just for couple hours. Yet none of those came out to bash Ola for all this and kept it subtle even in the reviews because they know it's a new startup and such things may happen in early days. Now if one questions them on genuine issues, and gets insulted by the CEO in such a way then it's obvious that Ola will receive the bashing by media. All journalists are writing against him.

[MCR]

This thread on Twitter is turning out to be a "Master Class" on how to not handle criticism.
If one reads the replies on this thread, its very clear that in general, people are not happy with the "OLA S1" or "Whatever (read as S1 Pro)" Scooter.

Taking on a journalist like a politician without facts or bias only shows, that the CEO has fallen on the wrong path. The same fate may await a Customer who complains with genuine issues. This does not bode well for a Company so young.

I would honestly like to Evaluate OLA Electric and their products, 5 years down the line (That if they are operating until then).

[airbus]

During my visit to China in mid-2017, I was amazed to see success of Chinese in adopting electric two wheeler, but same was not the case with cars. I did not see any of my colleagues using an electric car then. I believe, we need to move step by step here and over reaction to criticism is unwarranted. Success in electric two wheeler may not essentially result in success in electric four wheeler. Let us wait and watch to see how much success Ola gets in electric four wheeler space.

[avishar]

What Ola needs to do:

1. Management change.
2. Start spending generously on ads on mainstream media. Everything will be hunky-dory again.

I don't like Bhavish's attitude, but I do not want to extrapolate to how he behaves on social media to how his company should fare. Although, it certainly is true, a company's fate - especially a startup - will be representative of how its leader and founder thinks. Bhavish has immense control over Ola and Ola E's success depends on how he manages to navigate through this tough time. I have been skeptical a lot, but I also want these guys to succeed and shake up the market.


I think Ola has a fair shot of being the biggest disruptor in the 2W industry in India, although, I feel the window of opportunity in the E-2W space is closing. Ola is not the only one who is receiving generous amounts of money to succeed in this space and they need to be faster and not let the negative news overtake their positive word of mouth.

I respect Hormazd a lot, but there are many others trying to pile-in on the free-for-all against Ola.

I would like to say to some of these publications, who seems to be so concerned about customer's grievances, production quality, delivery timelines...

You lot in your entire history have never bothered about the Indian auto customer. Where is the article on Kushaq's fuel pump issues that left owners stranded in the middle of roads, literally a day after delivery? Nobody did a investigative "Long read" on that. Or the years of customers fighting in consumer courts against different OEMs in India?

There is a 10-page thread on T-bhp about Hyundai's brake-issues reported by owners. Maybe The Ken Or Autocar should write an article about that.

But we know why this won't happen.

This isn't trying to paint Bhavish as a victim. "Sab Dhanda Hain" - "Its all business". Bhavish knows exactly what he is doing.

He wants to rile up people and antagonize them to the point where he can create a cult around Ola E using the age old people vs the establishment angle. And he is doing somewhat of a successful job so far. And he has certainly pricked the....coterie.

[am1m]

Originally Posted by Venkatesh

Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has shared a rendered image of the upcoming Ola electric car on his Twitter account giving an idea of how the EV would look like.

Attachment 2265014

Is it just me or is that a really bad image render? Plus the backdrop used seems to be from somewhere in San Marco Square, Venice. (Check out the similar arches, paving stones and blue chairs from this pic: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/....367.6483.1176)

So what is the big secret Bhavish Aggarwal is trying to share? Are they developing an EV in Venice? Taking over an Italian EV company?

Or just trying to build hype out of literally nothing with an amateur render and then reacting like a teen when called out by an auto journo?

Let's not do free PR work for him guys and give this even more hype/publicity.

[fiat_tarun]

I think Hormazd raised a very valid point. The Ola scooter was bought off readymade from Etergo and still has so many issues.

Building a car is a different ballgame all together with much higher expectations.

On the response, very childish and customers can expect similar treatment to complaints given the CEO is driving this behaviour !

[lsjey]

The lure of money makes people do a lot of things. The IPO market is looking shaky and any exposure to a company in the social media is deemed good. To some investors taking a position, however, unreal it is and getting viral/trending is more important. And all this for a non-existent product!

I never trust any of these new breed of CEOs. Better to wait and watch before investing.

Regards,
lsjey