[anilupadhya]

Originally Posted by extreme_torque

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.

As per this thread, there are a lot of such instances where the suspension broke. Anyone run over? data for probability?

I understand the design was flawed. There needs to be a recall. But to call people who bought the scooter as fools was unwarranted. The issue may have been fixed.

Also, never saw so much rebuke from fellow members for other vehicles. That is my grouse.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by anilupadhya

Also, never saw so much rebuke from fellow members for other vehicles. That is my grouse.

I don't want to take the thread off-topic, but had to say this = passions run really wild for companies with famous + polarising founders. Especially where the founder is the face of the brand:

Tesla & Musk (Exhibit A)
Kingfisher & Mallya
Uber & Travis. This got settled down after professional managers came in
Facebook & Mark
Ola & Bhavish

Bhavish himself doesn't help matters with his frequent, controversial posts on Twitter & fights with others. He attracts fans (I am one) as well as controversy.

[CommitTran]

Conceptually ola s1 pro is such an amazing product but by the looks of it, the product not only has never ending software issues but inherent design flaws.
I was genuinely looking to buy one for near by travels as Ather feels a bit cramped for my comparatively heavier frame.

[CommitTran]

Originally Posted by GTO

Bhavish himself doesn't help matters with his frequent, controversial posts on Twitter & fights with others. He attracts fans (I am one) as well as controversy.

Sometimes I wonder if all these tactics are part of the strategy as a brand's face. Such aggressive tactis sometimes proves to be very attractive to certain investors

[srh]

Somehow I feel that comments which are anti Ola or pro Ola, both are unwarranted at this moment. There simply isn't enough authenticated information to be able to take a stance. I would much prefer that the homologaters/ regulators and consumer redressal authorities weigh in on the matter. Unfortunately everything just becomes a matter of opinions and perceptions in the age or social media. It need not be so.

[Shiv7154]

Originally Posted by m8002?

I was never fully convinced of Ola's front suspension design from the start. Maybe it would work for the smooth roads in Western Europe but for our pot hole ridden roads, it was always a concern.

Hopefully they address these issues quickly. But can they move to a regular telescopic suspension?

Most of our city roads are patch worked with angular step not properly tapered. Every a scooter runs over it, we get a thud, as we are hitting a stone. If the front fork is delicate, unlike the Old Bajaj Chetaks/LML Vespas, it will definitely tend to break. Hopefully OLA redesign the fork to suit Indian conditions.

[AutoDowntowner]

Just before the launch I was among the 1st to book this scooter along with my 4-5 friends. My thought was this scooter is just build-to-print kind of thing since it is actually an European model. Already proven. But suddenly a thought popped up about talking to my friend who was working at Ola then at senior level. I messaged him & he replied next day to have call on again on next day. I found this weird.
When the call happened I realized how bad the work pressure is there on each employee. There in nothing called as Work Culture.
My friend who earlier was a GM at an American giant co, and his ideas were also neglected at Ola. He was totally frustrated like almost every employee at Ola except its Mr. Agarwal.
But my friend calmly explained me the drawbacks on the Ola scooter without any anger towards company. He then told me that -
1. Front fork design is European and may not sustain the in Indian road conditions. (it is proved now).
2. Our softwares are still having many issues with which the launch is happening.
3. The on road testing is given to a 3rd party company which has hired hundreds of riders and as an engineer I do not trust their data completely. (Usually any reputed company will do this activity at its own.)
4. Marketing & creating hype is always the first priority here and rest everything is mostly neglected. (do you know Tata is already having a full female workforce at one of their assembly line, much before Ola, but Tata didn't create any hype.)
5. Silly things happen here. The timeline is preponed many times without any need and compromising the quality of work. Senior people were just not happy. Sometimes tooling were airlifted from S.Korea which were ultimately not required. This harmed the $ numbers several times.

did I miss to tell that my friend did not take any leave for complete one year, not even on Sunday, including midnight meetings.

I personally feel that Mr. Agarwal should understand the product & respect the ideas, thoughts generated by their employees and should not just try to keep the investors happy.
Mr. Agarwal and his response team always try to find out the fault in the customer and circumstances. According to him their product is flawless.

I am happy that I & my all friends cancelled the Ola scooter booking.

I hope this brand, this product will evolve and will win our trust.

[m8002?]

Originally Posted by Shiv7154

Most of our city roads are patch worked with angular step not properly tapered. Every a scooter runs over it, we get a thud, as we are hitting a stone. If the front fork is delicate, unlike the Old Bajaj Chetaks/LML Vespas, it will definitely tend to break. Hopefully OLA redesign the fork to suit Indian conditions.

I totally agree. To me it looked fancy and I remember there were concerns on the suspension at time of launch as well.

But it was countered telling this is an European vehicle and is very well engineered.

[Ton Ami]

OLA is aspiring to be a poor man's Tesla. With such pathetic and life threatening design & quality I am not sure what wonders they will do in Car market.

As someone implied in this group - software developers should not become vehicle developers without mechanical engineering knowledge. Let waterfall and agile remain in software development. Real products manufactured for use on real road MUST be designed and tested in a way that there is no need for further iterations..

[Nilesh5417]

Originally Posted by CommitTran

Conceptually ola s1 pro is such an amazing product but by the looks of it, the product not only has never ending software issues but inherent design flaws.
I was genuinely looking to buy one for near by travels as Ather feels a bit cramped for my comparatively heavier frame.

I wonder if they built the software first and then the scooter or the other way round?

[COMMUTER]

I would encourage people to seriously consider discarding this dangerously defective battery bike and take to cycling in a good quality cycle.

As I have always said, the real way to 'save the environment' is to first stop bunker fuelled container ships and airplanes before yapping at clean and refined petrol engines calling for them to be replaced by batteries shipped from china.

[aashishnb]

Just a question,

Does this qualify Ola for a class action suit? Culpable mass homicide?

What about the homologation - while it is somewhat unlikely to blame them for not checking each part's integrity & potential point of failure.


Off topic,
One thing I dont like with all EVs is the data collection they do - without an option to disagree to it / stop it.

[SuperGirl_Dad]

Originally Posted by volkman10

No recall yet - Ola's official statement on the incident, calls it a 'high impact road accident'!


Attachment 2410210

Originally Posted by soumobakshi

Unfortunately its me the impacted user.

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.


My ask to the Ola Team was to find out what caused the incident and what were they going to do about it in order to ensure that there are no such incidents in future. I decided to give them the time for doing a proper research and get back. I was out of Bangalore for a month so the vehicle remained parked without any usage.

Back to January 2023, tried reaching out to the Ola Service Manager to enquire about their findings (If Any); but then I found out that he has left Ola for good and even after almost 2 months I didn't hear anything from Team Ola and that's when the other incident involving the lady came into light. I decided to come into Social Media in order to bring this issue into light and hopefully some concrete and corrective measures leading to a possible product recall for all 1L plus Ola S1 users.


See the area marked in Green, well that was an addition later from the original design which came with the scooter to me in Jan'22

Attachment 2410373

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 ?

Originally Posted by srini1785

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.

Get well soon dear soumobakshi. Every metal fracture has specific tell-tale signs. By observing them the most "probable" cause can be identified.

How did OLA come to the high impact conclusion? was there any report published regarding the failure analysis?

This could be metal fatigue (material failure due to repeated loading/unloading cycle link to material fatigue) if it was not properly considered during design phase and/or could arise from manufacturing defects. See an example of fatigue fracture surface. Fatigue fracture surface will have the distinct "beach marks" or "clam shell" pattern (marked by fatigue crack propagation in below image)



Image Link

This is the zoomed version of the pic member soumobakshi posted from his failed scooter.



A simple microscopy analysis of the fracture surface can reveal if it was a impact loading or fatigue fracture or a combination of both. Can soumobakshi please confirm if his scooter was properly analyzed by a materials specialist?

Disclaimer:
This post is aimed only to understand the underlying cause of material failure leading to catastrophe in this case and cannot be construed in any other way. Nothing else intended.

If the design is indeed changed in latest revision, hopefully OLA voluntarily recalls the previous version, so no precious lives are lost.

[Black_Star]

Looks like Ola users have started an online petition to change and replace the suspension system

But in my opinion rather than signing for an bit of useless online petition they should take strong legal actions or get the govt to force a recall against Ola.

Section 110A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 is related to recall of motor vehicles. It empowers the Central Government to direct a manufacturer to recall motor vehicles of a particular type or its variants, if-

1. a defect in that particular type of motor vehicle may cause harm to the environment or to the driver or occupants of such motor vehicle or other road users; and
2. a defect in that particular type of motor vehicle has been reported to the Central Government by—

(i) such percentage of owners, as the Central Government may, by notification in the Official Gazette, specify; or (ii) a testing agency; or (iii) any other source.

Further, sub-section (6) of Section 110A of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988 empowers the Central Government to make rules for regulating the recall of motor vehicles, of a particular type or its variants, for any defect which in the opinion of the Central Government, may cause harm to the environment or to the driver or occupants of such motor vehicle or to other road users. Accordingly, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways vide G.S.R. 173(E) dated 11th March, 2021 has inserted a new rule 127C in Central Motor Vehicles Rules, 1989 which prescribes the procedure for recall of defective motor vehicles and recall notice.

[tracerspiff]

Originally Posted by SuperGirl_Dad

This could be metal fatigue (material failure due to repeated loading/unloading cycle

I was thinking the same. the same type of fracture occurring on many vehicles points to fatigue failure. If the OP can post an HD photo of the fracture surface, we can do a quick analysis.