Imagine an extremely hyped movie is getting a blockbuster opening. After waiting in a long queue for hours to get the ticket that you've already paid for, you realize that there was only one show. The director-producer is unprepared for the date of the second show – so you have to wait perennially to get a chance to watch it.
That is not all, the people who’d managed to get the tickets of the first show by paying a premium have just walked out of the theatre and tell you that the movie was cut short and the climax will be shown at a later date – probably ahead of the second screening.
Imagine the frustration of everyone including the folks who watched the show, the ones who were hyped and even the poor theatre staff who were simply projecting the movie and are now facing the ire of the public.
Relatable? This is precisely what is happening with Ola Electric right now. The hype and the romance of a stellar debut have been overshadowed by issues like delayed deliveries, buggy software, forced upgrades, and a range lower than advertised.
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Now in an interview with ET. Ola Electric’s chief marketing officer Varun Dubey has stated that while the users may have had their scooters delivered, they might have to wait for up to 6 months for getting access to the marquee features of the scooter that were advertised at the August 15 launch.
He said, “that customers will have to wait anywhere between 3 to 6 months to receive those features.” Though these features like cruise control, hill hold, and visual “moods” were expected to be available when the scooter gets delivered. This corroborates the theory which suggests that the software of the app-operated scooter wasn’t ready – unlike what the company had claimed all along.
Further, Ola Electric’s CEO had claimed that all the scooters booked – approximately 90,000 in all - in the initial window, will be delivered by February. However, the deliveries are happening at a snail’s pace and the number of scooters delivered is also pretty low – which raised a question mark of the claims made by Ola’s main man.
As per the ET report, Dubey wasn’t very transparent about the number of scooters delivered or the number of people who’ve given up on the hope of timely delivery and have cancelled the order. Though, registration of a vehicle is not something that Ola can control, dispatching of the vehicle alone doesn’t account for delivery as well.
Claims vs ground reality
Registration of a two-wheeler is a tricky process in a country like India – Ola’s direct delivery to customers is becoming another challenge for the end customers. Though the company is said to be “learning from the process”, it’s something that you expect Ola Electric - a vehicle manufacturer - to have worked out before it promised deliveries, at least.
Bhavish Aggarwal recently tweeted that the production capacity has been increased to 1000 scooters a day – which comes to close to 30,000 scooters a month, at least. However, the company’s social media handles are filled with complaints about delivery delays.
It is understandable that the company did get an unprecedented amount of interest during the initial booking window, however, the lack of transparency in the early stages can be attributed to the frustration of both the employees and the customers.
The situation around the next booking window is similar. While the users are eager to switch to a zero-emission vehicle, strangely it is the company that's hesitant in accepting more bookings because it might not be ready yet
Had the company clearly informed the customers about the work in progress around software and the manufacturing facilities instead of boasting around the features of the scooter and the purported two-million scooters a year capacity of its factory, the story could’ve been different.
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