[anilupadhya]

Originally Posted by Turbohead

you've got think twice before you buy an Ola scooter.

Damn, I've never seen so much love for a similar issue with the Royal Enfield bikes.Their own tvc shows the footpeg breaking off the frame, but here 'wah, kya bike hai'. I guess it a part of its character.

[Turbohead]

Originally Posted by anilupadhya

Damn, I've never seen so much love for a similar issue with the Royal Enfield bikes.Their own tvc shows the footpeg breaking off the frame, but here 'wah, kya bike hai'. I guess it a part of its character.

That's because of how it's being handled. https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motor...arts-free.html (Chassis snaps on a Royal Enfield Himalayan | EDIT: RE to replace chassis & damaged parts for free) . RE straight away acknowledged the issue to replace the frame. They acknowledged there is an issue. The fix they have provided is rather reliable and we don't hear many/no such incidents after that.

But what gets me riled up here is that Ola does not acknowledge that a life threatening issue exists and instead blames the customer invariably for causing an incident while threatening the victim to keep their mouth shut by forcing them to delete the tweeet when his own wife is in ICU. Sorry, but that's not how you treat a customer.

I'm not stating that other companies produce perfect, faultless products. I'm only calling out a company which is shifting their blame on customers while doing crazy PR stunts to ensure everyone moves on.

[anilupadhya]

Originally Posted by Turbohead

That's because of how it's being handled.

Much better than the below?

Originally Posted by soumobakshi

Unfortunately its me the impacted user.

Did I miss any recall issued by Royal Enfield for this life threatening defect in their products? Ola is mostly used within the city where help is close by. The Himalayan or the inty are taken to no man's land. Just wondering.

[DRIV3R]

Originally Posted by anilupadhya

Damn, I've never seen so much love for a similar issue with the Royal Enfield bikes.Their own tvc shows the footpeg breaking off the frame, but here 'wah, kya bike hai'. I guess it a part of its character.

Only difference being, the Himalayan still had the wheel attached so that you can atleast attempt to steer or brake, whereas in the ola it is a total failure where the front wheel and brakes are disconnected from the vehicle.

And the manufacturer going into denial mode, arm twisting the user by threats, under the table settlements in order to hush things up. Where is the professionalism expected out of a corporate? Also has the audacity to term this as "isolated" incident.

[shortbread]

Originally Posted by anilupadhya

Damn, I've never seen so much love for a similar issue with the Royal Enfield bikes.Their own tvc shows the footpeg breaking off the frame, but here 'wah, kya bike hai'. I guess it a part of its character.

The difference is how an issue is handled.

With RE one can take the motorcycle to an authorised service centre to flag/report the issue and claim warranty. Off late alongside making rapid strides in quality, RE has been extremely responsive in resolving issues.

OLA on the the other hand, well! Firstly we were told that the scooter is smart enough to diagnose any problems, intimate the company and a service solution will come to our doorstep. Now highly unlikely that an inbuilt system exists to recognise a broken suspension. Irrespective of the suspension issues, I can tell you what the first hand experience has been. Calling the company means clogged phone lines. Another alternative is emailing OLA cc'ing each and everyone related to the firm (funny the number of auto 'no more with the firm' replies), then there's some response.

Automobiles are fairly complex mechanical things and are prone to having issues, we're all prepared for that. It's the horror of finding a resolution that tests ones patience and sanity.

OLA desperately needs authorized service centres that owners can directly take their scooters to without any complex process of admission. We just need the scooter fixed. Opening at least 150 customer accessible service centres across India must be the first step.... like yesterday!

I understand bhavish's man love for all things Musk & Tesla. I understand the efficiency of a direct sales model. But one can take a broken Tesla to the company service centre. The most effective instrument to currently del with a broken OLA is a prayer!

[VWAllstar]

I just saw an addition to Ola's offering. Though appreciated, it can be taken as if they themselves aren't confident of the product so offering Ambulance service.

[neil.jericho]

Originally Posted by soumobakshi

I met with this accident on 10th of November while i was ferrying my daughter back from school and was almost near my Home in Bangalore. I normally avoid main roads to avoid traffic and i was riding through a road which you can call as by lanes, not much of traffic and normally used by localities only. But then its a proper Tar road with of course few pot holes here and there (Well its Bangalore!)
I was at about 35kmph speed (This was validated by Ola Telemetry Team) and suddenly I felt a bit of Off Balance and then the front wheel buckled in and I lost complete control of the scooter. Due to the sudden nature of the incident, my upper body hit the handlebar area and my daughter crashed onto me from behind. As a ritual i ensure to wear a proper Helmet while riding a 2 wheeler and it proved its mettle even though both of us were thrown on the road. Luckily for my daughter, my back acted as a collision damper and she was by god's grace without any impact other than the mental trauma. I felt like something heavy crashed on my chest and took a few seconds to start breathing normally, but the blunt force trauma was just too much to recover from. I sat on the road and dialed my wife asking her to come with the car and pick us up, without divulging any further details.

soumobakshi, it was horrifying to read your ordeal with the front suspension caving in, without any warning. It is with God's grace that you and your daughter escaped without any further injury. Considering Bangalore's road conditions and unruly traffic, the outcome could have been so much worse, for both of you.

Thank you for sharing the details of your suspension breaking on its own, at the confirmed speed of 35 kmph, which is Ola speak for "extremely isolated cases of high impact accidents". I have shared this post with a few people who were planning to buy an EV scooter. Though I had already given them a heads-up about the risks associated with purchasing unproven EV products, your timely post will certainly help them make an informed decision.

Sadly, this Ola thread also stands the risk of getting de-railed by the typical whatabouttery from its supporters. As responsible members of the automobile community, it is important for us to have meaningful and informed discussions about the pros and cons of any company's approach and its products.

Shifting the topic of discussion from Ola to a company that isnt even its competitor, is like asking the police officer who pulled you over for jumping a red light, why he is fining you, when he should be fining your neighbour, who might have driven with tinted windows, past the same signal, 5 years ago

[Aditya]

Mod Note: Kindly stick to the topic. All off topic posts will be deleted.

[mac13]

Originally Posted by tiagoatrix

)This is not an isolated incident, just go through the conversation in the whatsapp group (I'm part of it).

This is absolutely appalling. Ola needs to do much more than just make frivolous claims regarding their product. How can anyone ride an Ola scooter without any worries knowing that the suspension could just give away anytime. The consequences of this could be deadly.

[Ev_junkie]

Originally Posted by soumobakshi

Now, I am told that the extra beefed up joint support is the new design for the front fork (Pointed by Green Arrow)

Attachment 2410372

Looking at the evolution of the Front Fork, if there were no issues why did they change the design and when they did the change, why are they not going in for a mass recall to rectify the issue for all of us who trusted in the product ?

This is the exact question I have in my mind. This design update on the front fork clearly is an acknowledgement from ola that the front suspension has design issues. Ola should do the right thing by recalling the older models without this updated fork and fix it. Even though it is a financial hit to them it will go a long way in building customer trust in the vehicle and the brand.

[rahul_kej]

This is OLA S1 Air. They should had used the same front suspension right from the launch rather than risking there customers to be the beta testers.

[extreme_torque]

Originally Posted by anilupadhya

Ola is mostly used within the city where help is close by. The Himalayan or the inty are taken to no man's land. Just wondering.

So if it was used outside the city, this would be a problem to you?

P.S. There is a much higher chance that you will be run over by a vehicle if you fall down in the city than on the highway.

[srini1785]

The frame of an EV is different from an ICE in various ways. Depending on the type of EV, either a Hub wheel or a BLDC driven, the CG of the frame shifts. The other issue is that in a ICE, the type of movement of the prime mover has both longitudinal and rotary movements. However in a EV, there's only rotary movement of the motor. The main static load of a EV is the battery which is centrally located just above the rear swing arm.

The front suspension design depends on the weight that is coming to bear on it and design. The important factor is called the rake angle and this determines the stress on the neck. A diagram to illustrate the concept is shown below.



Spring suspension generally take both longitudinal and to some extent radial forces. A hydraulic just wont work with radial loads. Its a complex load calculation and there are software which simulate a frame fatigue. The other factor to be taken into account is the build, if the suspension members are welded or formed pieces. Normally welded joints have more strength than bent or formed shapes.

I have no idea if OLA did all this research before using its own customers as crash test dummies.

[Reinhard]

Slightly OT, off topic. This incident reminded me of similar situation faced by Bajaj's first 4 stroke scooter around the turn of the millennium. The Bajaj Saffire. It had a front wheel with a single telescope front setup attached on the left of the wheel. A large number of front fork failures followed with severe injuries in multiple cases.

The design I think was found to be flawed in it, and the model was quickly replaced with an updated one (with some changes to the engine as well) - that had a conventional twin telescope front suspension setup (like the TVS Wego and traditional bikes). It was then launched as the Bajaj WAVE.

[arjab]

Indian driving conditions are extremely demanding and the components most at risk of failure during vehicle testing have always been:
Suspension componentry, Steering systems, HVAC systems, Weather-strips & door sealing systems(in handling dust and water ingress), Electronic components ability to handle heat, humidity and dust ingress etc.

What is good for EU & USA may not be the right fit for India. And this is exactly what is happening. There is no shortcut to reliability: it is testing, testing and more testing under Indian driving conditoons to establish the robustness of vehicle aggregates.

In fact a few years back Ashok Leyland also faced such an issue. Their first generation DOST LCV had a semi-independent front suspension setup with a cantilever transverse leaf spring. After numerous field faliures, the DOST was relaunched with conventional underslung leaf spring with a rigid front axle. Same had happened many years earlier with the Tata 207/TataMobile/Pickup. It had an independent double wishbone front suspension setup which gave away under load and rough road conditions. Now the Tata YODHA (the lineage can be traced back to the 207!) has a rigid axle front with a leaf spring setup.
Not many examples are there for two wheeler suspension failure as most systems in use in India uses the ubiquitous front telescopic fork layout which are quite robust.
There is no shortcut to testing before launching a product, whichever company it may be. It may delay a product launch timeline but at the end of the day the product will be that bit more glitch free and you will thank yourself becuase you will have a greater set of happy customers.