After launching its e-scooter with fanfare in August, Ola Electric managed to actually begin delivery of its S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters only this month, and that too in the cities of Bengaluru and Chennai alone. Further, there were also allegations that some of the promised features in the scooters were not there.
Anyway, it was revealed Ola has been unable to stick to its delivery timeline because the ongoing chip shortage had hit its production schedule.
But even as it is believed that the bottlenecks may persist for some more time at its factory in Tamil Nadu, the company has announced that it is extending the delivery of the e-scooters to a few more cities in the country.
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In a tweet last night, Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO and co-founder of Ola Electric, said, “Addressing the most popular question - yes, deliveries are on. Wonderful to see happy customers with their Ola scooters. Bangalore, Chennai last week. Vizag, Pune, Ahmedabad, Mumbai & many more cities this week and next."
Ola started delivery of its S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters on December 16 through special events for the first 100 customers in Bengaluru and Chennai. After that not much was heard from the company till last night. Ola S1 and S1 Pro e-scooters are priced at Rs 99,999 and Rs 1,29,999 (ex-showroom) respectively.
The CEO also thanked interested buyers for their patience. Ola has been missing delivery much to the chagrin of the buyers.
Aside from delivery issues, Ola Electric had also postponed its second online purchase window. It was originally scheduled to begin on November 1 and later pushed to December 16, 2021. However, Ola later said that the booking window will only open sometime in late January 2022.
A Bloomberg report has claimed that Ola is beset with production issues at its super factory in Tamil Nadu. Quoting unidentified sources, the report said Ola is making only about 150 vehicles a day. "At that pace it'll be hard to complete the 90,000 orders the company says it has on its timeline. Its body shop is running at half capacity, and its paint shop isn't operating, the people say," the report claimed.
Ola has a real task on its hand to clear production, technical and delivery issues.
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