[maint1234]

why so much negativity ?
Ola did bungle their e-scooter a bit but atleast someone in India took a gamble and put in time and money in a industry of the future.
The PC revolution came in the 90s and went and India has zero industry supplying hardware . The largest consumer of PCs , with all hardware imported from China, vietnam, Malaysia, etc. Our careful industry stalwarts didnt invest a single paisa in these sunrise industries.
Similarly in the solar industry, with India buying gigawatts worth of solar cells, all from china and other countries.
No lcd screen manufacturing (bonding) company in India till this year. Again one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world , with everyone glued to their TVs and smartphones.
And how many smartphone components are we manufacturing in India ? Though even screwdriver technology is good if it generates jobs here, like Samsung.

Lets not start tearing our clothes at the first hint of trouble.
If SpaceX was a Indian company, with its string of initial launch failures, the Americans would still be using soyuz to reach the space station.

As the most respected online Indian automotive site , lets not indulge in knee jerk reactions to every setback.
Lets give constructive suggestions on how Ola can bring out a great product.

[fiat_tarun]

While kudos to his aggression and marketing skills, I agree with the general view here that a car at this stage is very ambitious. A couple of points on why I think so.

The scooter was based on a ready design (Etergo) that was bought off and re-engineered and we still have so many issues (quite a few serious)

A car is way more complex and they are at the concept stage right now and want to start production in 2023! Designing, prototyping, testing and SOP in 1.5 years in simply way too ambitious. I know of safety systems like your ESP alone that would need this much time if we start today!

[Asoon]

Originally Posted by maheshm619

The biggest innovation Ola did was to find a place to stick their badge and integrate a music player to the scooter.

The Ola scooter is a rebadged product.Please see link below:

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...rm-etergo.html (Ola Electric acquires Netherlands based e-scooter firm Etergo)

Its an acquisition, they paid for the tech, design and acquired the team, nothing wrong in at its a standard industry practice. Its not rebadged product because OLA owns the technology design, manufacturing and may be the same engineers are working in OLA for further development.

Companies like Micromax were doing rebadging, where development / production / R&D was happening ion China and they were just choosing the white label product and adding their logo. In this case OLA has the manufacturing unit, R&D unit, Codes are written by OLA engineers

[DicKy]

Now I understand how people got excited for Ola scooter.

More of an Ather guy, since I respect Ather's approach and strategy than Ola's. (Haven't ridden either)

But with these teasers I am hooked, more than Tata's Curvv or the other model. Just hope this is a well developed model ( within 2-3 years?? ). Pray this is not a kit assembled mdoel from some random Chinese company.

[nish6474]

Originally Posted by fiat_tarun

A car is way more complex and they are at the concept stage right now and want to start production in 2023! Designing, prototyping, testing and SOP in 1.5 years in simply way too ambitious. I know of safety systems like your ESP alone that would need this much time if we start today!

The sneak peak of the car showcased by Bhavish looks similar to the Pravaig Extinction/ MK1. Who knows Ola may have bought out Pravaig as well and hence the ambitious timeline.

[AZT]

I look forward to this car. Competition is great and I do feel EV pricing needs to get down for mass adoption.

[raghu67]

Hello everyone,

I am using Ola S1 pro from December 24th, 2021. Have clocked 4460KMs so far. Except for a strange clicking noise from the front suspension when I go over a large bump at speed, there have been absolutely no issues with S1 pro. This clicking sound would automatically go away after a few kilometers of riding. So, that's not a major concern. I only wish they had given all the advertised features on day 1 rather than making us wait for 6 months. I too have seen many videos on YouTube where people were complaining about sudden reverse motion (few unfortunate events have happened), low range, unable to climb an incline etc., etc., I haven't faced any glitch like sudden reverse motion, regarding the range, I am satisfied with what I am getting and was able to estimate the range with just 3 to 4 days of riding the scooter. Taking inclines is an easy task, to reach my apartment, I must take an incline of around 300meters at a near 40-degree angle. I keep it in normal mode and scooter easily climbs it. I am 95KG for reference, and the same incline is impossible unless I am in first gear on my Ford Fiesta with me, my wife and 2 kids of age 8.

There are some issues, but it's not an inferior product.

If OLA car/ SUV has the correct range and price, I would add it to my options.

[Zinda]

Yay for OLA - venturing into EV space, super aggressive product plan, futuristic styling of vehicles, marketing and launch strategy

Nay for OLA - zero prior experience, ambitious plans without a working product in place - hence not a brand yet, no customer trust, incompetent testing strategy, negligible efforts to correct the perception and establist customer trust

EVs are relatively easier to build. What makes it difficult is connected car and other features, and packaging all of them together to work reliably and seamlessly in real world conditions.

Why OLA is being bashed - they dont seem too focused to correct their mistakes. Aggressive launching alone has never worked in Indian market - else Maruti/Hero would have been wiped out yet for the lack of it. OLA has a wonderful opportunity to create an EV ground up (innovation, design freedom, space optimization), instead of retrofitting EV tech in an ICE vehicle. But you got to get your basics right first. Remember Samsung's notorious Note5? What did they do- rebuilt brand image first! It took them 2 full iteration before they tasted grand success again (in Note series) with Note8. And while setting charts on fire later, they ensured they NEVER repeated that mistake.
OLA should thank their stars that EV space is yet to see cut throat competition - had it been ICE space, competition would have EATEN it up by now.


Tesla made full use of their first opportunity by getting their fundamentals right in first cut by creating a safe, comfortable car and OTA updates took care of bucket load of features, however, OLA is yet to taste sustainable success as a 2 wheeler. Tesla is far, OLA can learn a thing or two from Ather first!


IMHO Comparing OLA's failure with that of VW/Audi/BMW is baseless because yes one or two of their products are imperfect, whereas OLA's first and only product is in question which also questions their Engineering capability. A failed DQ200 is not life threatening, engaging reverse gear automatically while moving forward certainly is, even worse when this happens to a 2 wheeler.
BMW is proactive enough to acknowledge their mistake and recall the faulty models, what about OLA?

Let me put up another perspective- both Tesla and SpaceX has been created by same guy. One received immense success and other has barely received scalable and sustainable success. But why no one bashes SpaceX? Coz it is solving what is niche, almost unexplored and extremely complicated problem. DQ200 alone is much more complex than all mechanical bits of an entire EV!

IMHO, OLA must work on these 3 fundamental problems -
Accept failures
Build trust
Fix the core - cooling of battery pack

2 things which are in their favour -
They have time
They have money and infra

Good luck Ola!!

[pjbiju]

Originally Posted by raghu67

Hello everyone,

I am using Ola S1 pro from December 24th, 2021...
Taking inclines is an easy task, to reach my apartment, I must take an incline of around 300meters at a near 40-degree angle. I keep it in normal mode and scooter easily climbs it.
...

Not to nitpick. But I highly doubt if the incline you are taking is actually a 40 degree one. 40 degrees would be very very steep and it will be intimidating to even walk down such a slope. You can use an Android app like inclinometer to measure the actual degree of inclination. This is just so that people will get the actual numbers or facts.

[SKC-auto]

Originally Posted by Zinda

IMHO Comparing OLA's failure with that of VW/Audi/BMW is baseless because yes one or two of their products are imperfect, whereas OLA's first and only product is in question which also questions their Engineering capability. A failed DQ200 is not life threatening, engaging reverse gear automatically while moving forward certainly is, even worse when this happens to a 2 wheeler.
BMW is proactive enough to acknowledge their mistake and recall the faulty models, what about OLA?

My post may come up as supporting OLA, but we all know they have some issues(I believe some are fixed in latest OTA), and Bhavish rhetoric is another biggest impediment, he is clearly trying to replicate Elon Musk, but Elon started all these tweets after the success of Model S, Space X and Model 3, Bhavish started before being successful.

Having said that, I don't think VW designed DQ200 to fail, after so many years it could not fix it, even though not life threatening it's still an engineering fail. BMW is proactive to recall after many fire incidents. VW and BMW are guilty of designing cheat software in their desiels.

Would like to repeat what Elon Musk often says, there are only 2 american auto companies which did not go bankrupt, Ford and Tesla. In between there are 100s of auto companies which went bankrupt, including GM. Let's wait and watch how OLA shapes itself into instead of shouting Kill..Kill!

GM ignition switch problems, happened in US, lawsuits did not kill the company, it's easy to kill a startup though.
https://www.vox.com/2014/10/3/18073458/gm-car-recall

[raghu67]

Originally Posted by pjbiju

Not to nitpick. But I highly doubt if the incline you are taking is actually a 40 degree one. 40 degrees would be very very steep and it will be intimidating to even walk down such a slope. You can use an Android app like inclinometer to measure the actual degree of inclination. This is just so that people will get the actual numbers or facts.

Firstly, thank you for suggesting me an app name to check the inclination.
I have installed the app, gone through the same incline.
I have seen 27.9° at the bottom (from where I have started) and it has increased to 31.1°.
Just for reference, this incline is like the incline at Birla Mandir in Hyderabad.
I have observed many cars, SUVs, MUVs shift down and engines revving up when they come to that exact spot. What makes everyone shift down is that the incline starts right after a 90° right turn.

[SKC-auto]

Bhavish shows indigenous made Li-ion battery cell.

[Venkatesh]

Bhavish Aggarwal regarding Ola Electric Car.

[ajayc123]

Looks like this guy has hired the same agency hired by Grand Vitara. Silhouette teasers.

[lionheart_mm]

I don't think Ola has the R&D to build an electric car from ground up they probably will buy CKD kit from some random Chinese car maker and rebrand it.