Ola’s battery of pivots tests investor patience

FEW FOUNDERS HAVE promised as boldly — or pivoted as often—as Bhavish Aggarwal.

- NARAYANAN V

From once speaking of selling millions of electric scooters annually to lowering expectations to 15,000 units a month for Ebitda breakeven, the journey of Ola Electric has been marked by sweeping ambition and sharp recalibration.

In the past year alone, Aggarwal has revised plans across key verticals—cell manufacturing, store expansion, revenue guidance and two-wheeler sales. The shifting goalposts have rattled retail investors, triggered analyst downgrades and pushed the stock to record lows. On Wednesday, Ola shares closed at 63% below the IPO price of ₹76, erasing over ₹56,000 crore in notional shareholder wealth from their peak levels in August 2024.

The latest reset centres on a strategic shift toward battery energy storage. In his Q3FY26 shareholder letter, Aggarwal described the quarter as a “structural reset”, with a renewed focus on the newly launched battery energy storage system (BESS) business under the Ola Shakti brand. He projected a revenue potential of ₹15,000-20,000 crore over the next few years and outlined plans to scale the company’s Gigafactory to 6 GWh of in-house '4680 Bharat cells' capacity by March 2026, up from 2.5 GWh currently.