No re-routing: Ola Electric must stick to its road-map for investors
₹33,500 crore. Large as this may seem, it’s only 40% of what the company was earlier looking at, reportedly, and also a steep drop from its last funding round, which valued it at $5.4 billion. Naturally, too, Ola’s ramp-up to this stage invites closer scrutiny.
While Aggarwal has averred that Ola Electric’s valuation was cut to make its share issue more attractive for investors, there’s a trail of signs that point to a less-than-smooth ride thus far. Take the scope of Ola’s market ambition, a key determinant of what value it could foreseeably create for shareholders. On Independence Day, Ola plans to reveal details of an electric motorcycle on its launch pad.
Scroll back to 15 August 2022, though, and it was India’s four-wheeler market being served notice of Ola’s entry. “Indian carmakers are conservative, thinking that we only want small cars or maybe mid-sized cars," Aggarwal had then said at a livestream titled ‘Mission 2022,’ “Global automakers think that the Indian market is not ready for world-class tech and hence sell their hand-me-down tech in India... We deserve a car that defines our new destiny." With this review of a market gap, he promised an electric car that would be the fastest made in India, with a pedal thrust taking it to 100kmph in under four seconds, a range of over 500km per charge, an all-glass roof and advanced digital tech.
Its launch? 2024. Or so it said on the screen at the end of that spiel. Today, Ola’s IPO papers make no mention of any electric car.
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