Ola begins deliveries of its electric scooters

Ola Electric began the deliveries of its electric scooters -- Ola S1 and Ola S1 Pro -- on Wednesday. Earlier this month, Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal had said that the deliveries will begin from December 15.
 
"Special events were organized for the first 100 customers today in Bangalore and Chennai where they came with their friends and family to ride their revolutionary Ola S1 and S1 Pro home," the company said in a statement.
 
To fulfill the overwhelming reservation and purchase response received across the country, priority deliveries are based on an automated scientific approach that decides the delivery handover as per their purchase date, variant, location, color, and other factors, it added.
 
Last month, the company had told its customers that the delivery timeline for the scooters will be delayed due to the global shortage of chips.
 
Ola had launched its scooters on August 15 this year on the occasion of India's 75th Independence Day. While Ola S1 is priced at Rs 99,999, Ola S1 Pro costs Rs 1,29,999. The price of the scooters varies in different states depending on the subsidies being offered by them on electric vehicles.

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Earlier in September, Ola had said that it sold scooters worth more than Rs 600 crore and four scooters each second since it began accepting orders. However, the sailing has not been smooth for the company. The first purchase window for the scooters was opened on September 15 after a week's delay, followed by a much-publicised tweeted apology from Aggarwal: "Unfortunately we have had many technical difficulties in making our website for purchases live today... the website was just not upto our expectations on quality...".
 
Besides, the company also had to push back its second purchase window, along with the delivery dates, due to the semiconductor shortage.
 
"Today is a landmark day for those who have joined the revolution with us as we begin our deliveries of Ola S1. We are working hard to ramp up the production at the Ola Futurefactory to get the scooters in the hands of our customers as per their delivery windows," Ola Electric Chief Marketing Officer Varun Dubey said on the commencement of deliveries.
 
Last month, the company had announced expansion of its customer test rides for the scooters across the country.
 
The Ola S1 scooters are manufactured at the company's factory in Tamil Nadu. "At full capacity of 10 million annual production, the Ola Futurefactory will be completely operated by about 10,000 women," as per the company.

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