DIFFERENT STROKES

OLA ELECTRIC CHASED COMPLETE MARKET DOMINANCE, STRETCHED ITSELF THIN AND IS COURSE CORRECTING. ATHER TREADED WITH CAUTION AND IS A STRONG NUMBER THREE. BUT THE BATTLE IS FAR FROM OVER

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TESLA IS FOR the West; Ola is for the rest," Bhavish Aggarwal, the Chairman and Managing Director of Ola Electric, told a gathering of over 5,000 people on August 15, 2024, while unveiling an electric motorcycle. Aggarwal, a serial entrepreneur, was leading India's biggest electric two-wheeler maker. But what the IIT-Bombay graduate didn't foresee was Ola Electric not only forgoing its pole position but also skidding out of India's e-two-wheeler race.

Ola Electric was fifth in sales in November and December 2025, behind TVS Motor Company, Bajaj Auto, Ather Energy and Hero MotoCorp. It sold 8,405 units in November and 7,340 in December till 29th of the month, according to data from the government's VAHAN portal. The average comes to two vehicles each from the vast network of 4,000 company-owned outlets, 3,200 of which opened on Christmas Day last year. Its market share in e-scooters—once as high as 50%—slipped to just 7.2%.

As Ola sputtered, Ather Energy, founded by IIT-Madras alumni Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, witnessed a steady rise in sales. Its market share was 17.4% in November 2025, up from 10% in the corresponding month of the previous year.

This is a case study of IITian founders choosing different paths to build their companies. Aggarwal played big from day one and co-founded one of India's biggest ride-hailing services, Ola Cabs (now Ola Consumer), in 2010. Three years later, he was taking on US giant Uber. Around that time, Mehta and Jain quit their jobs and went back to their alma mater's incubation centre to build Ather Energy.