BLUSTERY RIDE

BHAVISH AGGARWAL'S CONFIDENCE BELIES THE STRUGGLES HIS DREAM COMPANY OLA ELECTRIC IS GOING THROUGH. EVEN AS CONSUMER COMPLAINTS, PRODUCT CHALLENGES, AND SENIOR MANAGEMENT CHURN RISE, AGGARWAL CONSIDERS THESE AS INEVITABLE RIPPLES IN A DISRUPTIVE BUSINESS MODEL. WILL OLA ELECTRIC END UP A PIONEER OR JUST ANOTHER GOOD IDEA?

- PRERNA LIDHOO

Ola's 425,000 sq. ft office campus in Bengaluru's Koramangala exemplifies how the company's 36-year-old Founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal sees the future of mobility in India.

Just like he consolidated different offices in the city into one campus, he wants to build a similar mobility ecosystem so that his ride-hailing, electric vehicle, used cars and other businesses can form a mobility super app of sorts. Impressive? Yes. But like most things in life, it's easier said than done. However, Aggarwal is unperturbed. "Any disruption will have its challenges. Maybe going forward, we have to become better at anticipating them," he says, in an interaction with Business Today for this story.

In February 2021, Aggarwal commenced the ambitious task of building the world's largest two-wheeler factory with 10 million annual capacity spread across 500 acres, 33 percent of which is fully operational today (the current conventional two-wheeler market leader, Hero MotoCorp, has an annual capacity of 9 million across eight factories). Ola's factory is expected to be near completion by the end of 2022. Aggarwal's vision of building a mobility ecosystem depends a lot on Ola Electric's success. But that journey has been far from sweet.

After having made bookings in July 2021, customers had to wait till December for the deliveries to begin. Then there were scores of customer complaints on social media platforms, safety concerns kept aggravating, and senior-level exits put a question mark on the company's work culture. Despite the troubles, Ola Electric has taken pole position in the nascent electric two-wheeler space in FY23 (see chart 'The Upstart'). To sustain this growth momentum, though, Aggarwal will need to course-correct as he moves to launch an electric car in two years.

TURBULENT START