Days after an Ola S1 Pro caught fire, Ola Electric is said to be contemplating a voluntarily recall of over 1,400 scooters from the batch
Weeks after an Ola S1 Pro electric scooter caught fire last month, Ola Electric has decided to recall 1,441 units delivered so far to run diagnostics and health checks on the entire batch. It must be noted that this is the third recall drive of an electric scooter this year after Pure EV and Okinawa came under the scanner for fire incidents.
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Speaking about the Ola S1 Pro that caught fire in Pune, the company said that it was a one-off case and it’s confident of the scooter complying with all the safety norms. It also reiterated that the battery pack is compliant with AIS 156 as well as ECE 136. “Our internal investigation into the March 26 vehicle fire incident in Pune is ongoing and the preliminary assessment reveals that the thermal incident was likely an isolated one,” the company said in a statement. “As a pre-emptive measure we will be conducting a detailed diagnostics and health check of the scooters in that specific batch and therefore are issuing a voluntary recall of 1,441 vehicles.”
Recently, Pure EV, a Hyderabad-based electric scooter start-up, issued a recall of 2,000 units of its ETRANCE+ and EPLUTO 7G e-scooters to check issues with batteries and chargers. A scooter from the startup caught fire last week and exploded, which led to a loss of life and injuries to two people. Last year, in Septmber, two scooters from Pure EV faced a similar fire issue. Even Okinawa, one of the leading players in the low-cost electric scooter market, has issued a recall of 3,215 units of its electric scooters owing to multiple fire incidents in many parts of the country. So far, this year, at least half a dozen of incidents of EV catching fire have been reported in India.
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The recall drive from Ola Electric has been announced days after Nitin Gadkari, Minister for Road Transport and Highways, strongly recommended the EV manufacturers to voluntarily recall vehicles. He even proposed strict penalties for those that don’t recall the vehicles for diagnostics.
“Several mishaps involving Electric Two Wheelers have come to light in the last two months. It is most unfortunate that some people have lost their lives and several have been injured in these incidents,” Gadkari tweeted. “”We have constituted an Expert Committee to enquire into these incidents and make recommendations on remedial steps. Meanwhile companies may take advance action to Recall all defective batches of vehicles immediately. Under the leadership of PM Shri@narendramodi ji, our government is committed to ensure safety of each and every commuter.”
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Earlier, NITI Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant, had also requested EV manufactuers to initiate recall drives. Even Ola Electric issued a statement to call for stringent safety norms for EV to be made mandatory in the country. “We strongly support adopting a world class EV safety policy and standards architecture in India to ensure high quality products which enhance customer confidence in furtherance of our commitment towards our customers’ safety and grow the nascent EV industry,” it said. “Our battery pack already complies with and is tested for AIS 156, the latest proposed standard for India, in addition to being compliant with the European standard ECE 136.”
