Recently, we told you how to book the Ola S1 e-scooter online for a token amount of Rs 499. The Ola Electric Scooter garnered over 100,000 bookings within 24 hours of the order books being thrown open. The interested pre-ordered the upcoming EV for a token amount of Rs 499. Ola also made news for its direct-to-consumer retail of the vehicle but it looks like Vinkesh Gulati, President, Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA) isn’t too convinced with the latest disruptive force in the EV market.
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“Statements like the ‘biggest factory in the world’, and thousands of crores of investment creates eyeballs and is a very good strategy,” he said. However, we was quick to point out that there were hardly any other details on the scooter. “Nobody knows its price, specifications, mileage, etc. In the first 24 hours, they received 100,000 bookings . . . it is now nearly a week and this should have grown to 500,000 but no one is aware of the number,” he added.
While Gulati is happy that the buzz that the Ola Electric scooter has created will push other EV makers to fasten the development and launch of their offerings, he’s not very convinced with the booking numbers declared by the company. “I am not sure that this (tally) is achievable in the current stage of electric two-wheeler development . . . especially when the segment is still to reach sales levels of 100,000 units annually,” he said. Furthermore, the President of FADA is even not too sure about the direct delivery to customers. Speaking of his apprehensions, he said,”How will the company manage insurance and registration? It is not as if you start using the scooter immediately on delivery. I doubt if Ola can handle registration and insurance from a central place.” He also doesn’t feel that this type of direct retail is possible for a mass-market product. “If you want to sell some small numbers you can still do it, but if it is a mass-market product, it is very difficult in a country like India with the kind of compliances that are needed. Even if all these things are done digitally, there will still be need for some process/mediation to support the customer on the lines of what Tesla is doing,” he says.
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Meanwhile, speaking on garnering a great response to the Ola Electric Scooter, Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO, Ola Electric, said, “India’s EV revolution is off to an explosive start. Huge thanks to the 100,000+ revolutionaries who’ve joined us and reserved their scooter. I am thrilled by the tremendous response from customers across India for our first electric vehicle. The unprecedented demand is a clear indicator of shifting consumer preferences to EVs.
Stay tuned to CarBlogIndia for more on the Ola S1 electric scooter.
