Ola Electric Starts Construction On New Gigafactory Facility In India
Ola Electric announced the start of construction on its new Gigafactory facility in Tamil Nadu, India, on June 21, 2023. To commemorate the occasion, it held a ceremony and posted a video of the first pillar in its new construction on its official Instagram account.
When finished, the new Ola Electric Gigafactory facility will add 115 acres of manufacturing capacity to the company’s first such hub, Futurefactory. If everything goes as planned, the company expects the Gigafactory to be fully operational by early 2024.
Given the speed with which Ola Electric was able to build the 500-acre Futurefactory and get manufacturing up and running at its first facility, the goal does not appear to be insurmountable.
If that isn’t enough to keep Ola Electric on the minds of Indian riders (and potential riders), Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has recently teased a new S1 electric scooter ahead of its July launch.
At the same time, as India pursues its electrification goals, Ola Electric’s impressive growth is not without challenges. A quick glance at Ola’s social media channels reveals a slew of customers (and possibly some bots) complaining in multiple languages about the service and/or products they received.
To its credit, the company appears to respond quickly to these comments, with direct responses such as “Hi, please Direct Message your order ID & we’ll look into this.”
While its initial focus has been on electric two-wheelers, Ola Electric made international headlines in February 2023 when it announced plans to invest $920 million in the production of its own electric cars, as well as batteries for those vehicles. All of these vehicles, both two and four wheels, will be produced in Tamil Nadu.
Ola plans to produce 140,000 electric cars per year when it reaches full production capacity. In late 2022, it also expressed interest in expanding outside of India’s lucrative EV market, with potential future markets including neighboring Nepal, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and the European Union.
It’s unclear what the future holds, but Ola Electric’s current trending hashtag is #EndICEAge, which refers to internal combustion engines. We’ll keep you updated on any future developments.
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