Ola announces new electric vehicle category available across London

Mobility startup Ola has announced a new EV Category to specifically book rides in a fully electric vehicle. The EV category is a global first for Ola, which begins operations starting in London. Over time, the company aims to roll out the feature in other cities across the world where the company operates. The company also announced that a fully electric vehicle will cost the same as the comfort category. In London, the company has 700 EV drivers and expects the number to grow soon.

Further, to incentivize drivers to use the new Ola EV category, the company will offer a market-leading 0% commission rate for the first 3 months for electric rides. The company also plans on extending offers through key partnerships to help drivers and riders to shift to fully electric vehicles.

Marc Rozendal, Managing Director of Ola UK, said, “Since launching in the UK, Ola has consistently looked to innovate and help solve the toughest mobility challenges. The launch of Ola EV is another great example; offering riders and drivers the opportunity to play their part in the journey to emission-free rides. I am especially proud of the initiatives we are putting in place to help drivers make the switch to fully electric vehicles and that we have been able to do this at no extra cost to riders. I am excited to launch this category as a global first for Ola and while Ola EV will start in London, we can’t wait to begin expanding it across the country and cities around the world.”

A move towards a greener mobility

This is the first step in several measures the company aims to take over the coming months. It details its commitment to greener transport networks and zero-emission travel. Further, the company aims to support the Mayor of London’s plans to improve air quality across the capital. It recently announced the launch of the world’s largest 2W factory in Tamil Nadu, to build its range of electric scooters.

Ola Electric has also announced its plans for providing charging solutions to all its electric 2W customers. For this, it has unveiled a high-speed Ola Hypercharger Network and home-charger launching in the coming months. The wide and dense Hypercharger Network will have more than 100,000 charging points across 400 cities. In the first year alone, Ola Electric aims to set up over 5,000 charging points across 100 cities in India. This is more than double the existing charging infrastructure in the country.

About the Ola FutureFactory in India

Ola is building its FutureFactory on Industry 4.0 principles. It will use its own proprietary AI Engine and tech stack to deeply integrate into all its systems. The company aims the system to continuously self-learn and optimise every aspect of the manufacturing process. This will provide unprecedented control, automation and quality to the entire operations; especially with Ola’s implementation of cyber-physical and advanced IoE systems. Ola is building this Futurefactory at record speed. It expects the first phase to start operating this summer and the full factory ready by next year.

The factory has an initial annual capacity of 2 million units. Thus, Ola’s FutureFactory will create 10,000 jobs and serve as the company’s global manufacturing hub for both India and international markets across Europe, UK, Latin America, Australia and New Zealand. The mega-factory is also expected to be the country’s most automated, with about 5,000 robots and automated guided vehicles in use once the factory is fully operational to its full capacity.