With the rising wave of electric two-wheelers in India, Ola, known for its cab-hailing service, started delivering its S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters starting December 15 when it delivered the first 100 scooters. However, several buyers have been asking questions about late deliveries.
According to the Ola app, the scooters are currently estimated to be delivered in May 2023.
However, as tweeted by CEO Bhavish Aggarwal, the company is expanding its delivery network beyond Bengaluru and Chennai, including cities like Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Visakhapatnam, among others.
The purchase window for further bookings is open at the time of writing for the S1 Pro coming in at 1.3 lakhs ex-showroom and sans state subsidies.
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Ola’s two-wheeled hit or miss?
Ola electric had missed a couple of promised delivery dates in the past owing to global chip and electronics shortages caused by the pandemic. The company previously promised to deliver its scooter in late November and eventually pushed the date further to the second half of December. It finally put out the first 100 scooters, with more on the way.
The scooters, however, aren’t perfect yet. Apart from several software features, including multiple profiles, music support and several other connectivity features scheduled to arrive in June 2022, the scooter is reportedly plagued with issues caused by software bugs and faulty batteries. Ola’s current customer support and servicing network aren’t exactly great at the moment either.
The Morning Context reports a number of users having issues with their scooters. The scooter goes reverse when revved in the Normal mode and seems to be shutting down with sometimes as much as 50 kilometres of range left on the dash and sometimes just out of the blue with no apparent reason. Additionally, there are quality issues caused by the mishandling of these scooters during transit.
The Ola Scooter comes in two variants, the S1 (for INR 1 lakh) and the S1 Pro (for 1.3 lakhs ex-showroom). Both scooters get three riding modes, namely Normal, Sport and Hyper, and have a seven-inch display running an Android-based OS with roughly 121 kilometres of range for the S1 and 180 kilometres for the S1 Pro.
The company manufactures its scooters from their facility called Futurefactory, located in Tamil Nadu. The plant aims to roll out 20 lakh scooters every year in its initial phase. The facility was built in under six months and employs a women-only workforce consisting of roughly 10,000 workers.
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