Electric Ambitions

Bhavish Aggarwal’s Ola Electric is setting up a two-wheeler manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu to herald an EV revolution that is likely to make it a frontrunner in the segment

- MANU BALACHANDRAN

Bhavish Aggarwal is in a hurry. A sort of mad rush. What else perhaps explains the last few months at Ola Electric, one of India’s fastest unicorns and part of the larger Ola group founded by Aggarwal? The Ola group comprises a mobility business, Ola Cabs and Ola Electric, the electric vehicle arm.

In December 2020, as India’s economy began swinging back to normalcy after months of a nationwide lockdown, Aggarwal and his team at Ola Electric signed a memorandum of understanding with the government of Tamil Nadu to set up a manufacturing plant in the state to produce electric vehicles (EV). It was only a month before that, in November, that the company had signed off on the budget to set up a manufacturing facility.

Then, in January 2021, the company identified a 500-acre plot in Krishnagiri, a tiny hamlet in Tamil Nadu, also known as the mango capital of India, before conducting its groundbreaking ceremony on February 7. A month since, the company has been working at breakneck speed, including replanting trees and excavating land, to turn the land into what will be the world’s largest two-wheeler factory.

Once completed, at 10 million units a year, the company will account for 15 percent of the global two-wheeler market in the world.

Even Hero MotoCorp, the world’s largest two-wheeler maker, doesn’t boast a manufacturing facility of this scale. In comparison, across its six manufacturing facilities in India, Hero MotoCorp manufactures 11.6 million units a year, a tad higher than Ola’s proposed facility.