Ola Electric Bikes To Be Launched In 2025

Quick News Highlights:

- Ola unveiled four electric bikes on August 15, 2023

- Deliveries of the bikes are expected to commence between April and September 2025, as opposed to the earlier timeline of end of 2024

- The first motorcycle is expected to be an affordable and commuter-ish model

Ola Electric has revealed the launch timeline of its electric motorcycles in its DRHP document for IPO (Initial Public Offering) purposes. “We expect to begin delivery of the motorcycles in the first half of fiscal 2026,” the EV maker said. From this we believe that the first motorcycle could be launched between April and September 2025. Also, DRHP (Draft Red Herring Prospectus) is a document filed by a company with the the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) before launching an IPO and is used to introduce a new business or product to potential investors. 

Back in August 2023, the EV maker showcased four electric motorcycles: Diamondhead, Adventure, Roadster, and Cruiser. And now, just over a month ago, design patents of three motorcycles from Ola Electric were revealed and they looked more production ready than the ones showcased last year. Two of the bikes looked similar to the Ola Roadster with premium looking alloy wheels, double cradle frame and a frame mounted motor. 

The third bike looked simpler with a hub-mounted motor, telescopic fork, twin shock absorbers and a front disc and rear drum brake setup. It is likely to be the most affordable one out of the three and performance is expected to be similar to a 125cc petrol-powered bike. 

Also, Ola Electric's indusry report says, “Limited options have restricted EV penetration in the motorcycle segment to less than 1%, with major EV play in the over Rs 1 lakh price segment. With the strengthening of supply in popular price segments through R&D & technological advancements, penetration in the electric motorcycle segment is also expected to see an uptick.” Up until now electric scooters have had much more success in market penetration than electric motorcycles in India over the years and Ola Electric had the biggest market share (49%) as of May 2024 in the electric scooter segment. 

One of the major reasons that electric bikes have limited market penetration, is that customers expect a higher range from an electric motorcycle compared to an electric scooter. But for a higher range, with the current level of technology, batteries will need to be bigger and as a consequence will be heavier as well. This will in turn affect the bike’s handling, not to mention drive up the bike’s cost quite a bit. All said and done, we hope the upcoming Ola electric bike has a good balance of usable range and performance. 

Electric scooter owners are mostly dependent on their home chargers and use the public EV charging infrastructure in case of a top-up. But with electric motorcycles owners will need the availability of a well-developed infrastructure to go about their daily commutes, considering the bigger batteries. Ola’s charging network currently has 1,000 fast charging points across the country. But before the arrival of the EV maker’s first electric motorcycle, Ola will have to substantially develop that infrastructure to support the charging needs of the customers. We think the first motorcycle offering from the manufacturer will be an affordable, commuter-ish one and it could be the third bike we talked about regarding the design patents. The motorcycle is expected to get a price tag of about Rs 1.4 lakh (ex-showroom) and will rival the Revolt RV400.