Ola Electric's Bangalore-located Battery Innovation Centre (BIC) will commence operations starting August 2022, tweeted Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder & CEO, Ola.
'Building a state-of-the-art Battery Innovation Center (BIC) in Bangalore. BIC will be one of the world's largest and most advanced cell R&D facilities. 500+ engineers & PhDs, $500mn investment. Will be up & running next month,' read Aggarwal's tweet.
The start-up claims to be investing $500 million in setting up BIC. Once functional, Ola BIC will not only work on developing and designing EV battery cells for Ola Electric vehicles but for other OEMs as well. The company had recently showcased its first made-in-India Lithium Ion cell.
Ola Electric, via a press statement shared with the media about a week ago, had mentioned that it will be starting the mass manufacturing of Lithium Ion cells in India in 2023. Notably, India does not have any indigenous Lithium Cell manufacturers, and the country relies on importing these to fulfil its needs. The start-up, also a part of the Government of India's PLI scheme around ACC battery manufacturing, might be the first company to start lithium-ion cell manufacturing here.
Aggarwal, via another tweet, has claimed that Ola Electric will be making the sportiest car ever built in India. Meanwhile, Ola Electric scooter sales have dwindled from 9,255 units in May 2022 to 5,883 units in June 2022. Many experts have pointed towards the company's e-scooter catching fire incident as the reason behind the same, while the start-up had noted that challenges in supply-chain had led to decreased number of deliveries of electric scooters last month.
Softbank Group-backed start-up had claimed to surpass INR 500 crore revenue mark in the first two months of FY23. The start-up also claims that its future factory can manufacture up to 1,000 electric scooters per day. It is anticipated that the company is gearing up to launch its second electric scooter in India, and the same will be targeted towards the mass market.
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