Ola Electric To Use Own Battery Cells From 2025; Will Also Launch Electric Bikes Next Year

Quick Highlights

• Ola Electric to use in-house manufactured lithium-ion batteries from 2025

• These will reduce the battery costs significantly

• The EV manufacturer is on track to launch at least one bike next year

Ola Electric scooters will be powered by their own batteries from 2025. The EV manufacturer is currently developing lithium-ion cells at their Gigafactory in Tamil Nadu. 

In a press briefing, Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder and Managing Director, Ola Electric, has stated that, “(We) Will have (our) own cells within our scooters by early next year”. He further added that Ola wants to reduce dependency on imports and reduce the cost of EVs.

The li-ion cells produced indigenously at the Gigafactory will reportedly help Ola reduce battery costs by up to 50%, and also EV production costs. These benefits are most likely to be forwarded to customers in the form of reduced prices of Ola Electric scooters from 2025. Currently, Ola’s Gigafactory is operating at a capacity of 1.49 GWh, or about 1.49 million kWh, but has a capacity of 5GWh. Ola plans to eventually scale up the capacity to 100GWh.

This move comes at a time when the Indian government is mulling over reducing the subsidies for electric two-wheelers. Electric scooters and bikes became considerably more expensive when FAME 2 was discontinued and EMPS (Electric Mobility Promotion Scheme 2024) was applied. This pushed electric two-wheeler manufacturers to introduce more affordable scooters, like the Ola S1 X and TVS iQube 2.2kWh.

Ola is also on track to launch at least one electric bike in the next year. Ola had showcased the electric bike concepts last year, and is expected to showcase the production version on August 15, 2024. Ola is expected to launch the ‘Roadster’ first. Irrespective, its electric bikes should also be powered by the aforementioned in-house batteries, which should help Ola price them competitively.