Ola Announces 1,00,000 Hypercharger Network Stations For 400 Cities!

(UPDATE: The Ola Electric S1 has been launched in India at Rs 99,999 onwards. For bookings, availability, specifications and other details, read the launch story)

• The infrastructure is called Ola Hypercharger Network.
• The plan is to set up 5,000 charging points in 100 cities within the first year.
• Charging process will be cashless and completely digital.

What a way to commemorate World Earth Day! First, we got the big news of Hero and Gogoro’s partnership, and now, Ola Electric has announced its ambitious Ola Hypercharger Network. For the upcoming Ola Scooter (quite a simple and obvious name for its first electric offering), the company will have three different charging methods.

First up, there’s the conventional home-charger that will be provided with the scooter. It requires no additional installation; customers can simply plug it into a regular wall socket overnight (the PR doesn’t mention whether it is 5A or 15A, but we assume it is the former) for a complete charge.

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Next up, there will be charging ports across public places like parking lots, IT parks, colleges, malls, and the likes. These will be of the fast-charging type. Ola claims its scooter can be charged from 0-50 percent in just 18 minutes, which will be enough for a 75km ride. On paper, this should translate to a claimed range of 150km, which is brilliant. However, it remains to be seen at what speeds this figure is achieved.

There will be a dedicated app for your Ola Scooter to guide you to the nearest charging point. Hopefully, this should put your range anxiety at ease.

Finally, completing the Hypercharger Network will be dedicated multistoried charging structures. You can park your scooter at any of these standalone towers, which will be set up across major city centres and business districts.

We were already blown away by Ola’s claims of producing an electric scooter every two seconds at its 500-acre Krishnagiri facility. The Ola Hypercharger Network is only befitting for as large-scale production as this. The aim is to have 5,000 charging points in over 100 cities in the first year of operations. This is only bound to expand to 1,00,000 points across 400 cities, the exact timeline for which hasn’t been shared.

The critical takeaway here, though, is that the Ola Scooter is unlikely to have modular and swappable batteries, like the Etergo AppScooter on which it is based. The company is heavily investing in charging infra and not swappable stations, hinting at the battery architecture of the scooter. 

We could not have asked for a better future for electric mobility in India. What made it even more special is that the announcements came on World Earth Day. While Hero MotoCorp has taken the swappable battery path, Ola Electric has opted for wide-scale charging infrastructure, which the Ather Grid is currently trying to do but will likely fall short of Ola’s standards. Which of these will best solve range anxiety? We will have to wait and watch.