Bhavish Aggarwal: 75% Bookings Were For S1 Pro; More Affordable Scooter Coming

Earlier this year Ola Electric halted production of the lower-priced Ola S1 scooter citing low demand. At a recent event at the Ola Electric factory Bhavish Aggarwal confirmed that the demand for the S1 Pro was as much as 75% of the overall bookings. Even though the two scooters shared a lot of their hardware, including the frame, suspension braking hardware and most importantly, the electric motors, it is surprising that most customers opted for the more expensive offering.

Although both scooters shared the electric motor which was capable of delivering 5.5kW of power, with a peak power of 8.5kW, and 58Nm of torque, there were differences in claimed performance. The claimed top speed for the base variant was 90kmph while the top-spec model can do 115kmph. Also, the S1 claims to do a 0-60kmph run in 7 seconds, the S1 Pro claims to cut it down to 5 seconds. This was all down to the difference in the battery pack; with a 2.98kWh battery, the maximum range for the S1 was limited to 121km whereas the S1 Pro claims to clock 181km with its 3.97kWh battery. So, most of the first movers going for the Ola electric scooter found the Rs 30,000 premium well worth it.

However, this has left the more price-sensitive mass-market segment untapped. Bhavish Aggarwal also spoke of using more stable and less expensive LFP cells in future products. The introduction of LFP cells, which can be about 30% cheaper than NMC cells, could help drop prices significantly. In conjunction with recent updates in the MoveOS 2, such as the ECO mode with its 45kmph speed cap and the resulting improvement in range could help lower the overall cost by alterations to the motor and battery capacity. This would also help focus the lower variant as a rival to the more conventional EV scooter offerings.

• Check out Ola S1 images here
• New Scooters in India 2022
• EV Tech Simplified: Why EVs Catch Fire And How Can It Be Prevented?

While this could build the demand for Ola, production at the plant is currently at 1000 units per day on the single production line that operates in two shifts at the factory in Karnataka. They expect production capacity to increase from the current 1000 units per day to between 3000 and 4000 units per day by the end of 2022.