The rise and oscillation of India's EV Pioneer Ola

It was once the Indian -starting world star, but Ola is now fighting many crises.

Founded in 2010, it quickly became the name of a household, expanding from ride to electric vehicles and battery cells, causing Uber along the way.

The company jumped to Ai Bandwagon in 2023 with Krutrim, the first AI company in India, estimated at over $ 1 billion.

Marquee Global Investors as a Japan in SoftBank, based in the US Tiger Global and Singapore in Temasek, bankrupts this expansion. Last year, the Electric Coolces (EV) ARM of Electric Coolces (EV) raised nearly $ 734 million (£ 567 million) in the initial public offering (IPO) in India, the largest in India in 2024.

But this ambitious rise is accompanied by a series of disputes lately, especially in his hand EV.

Ola Electric lost nearly 70% of its value in the seven months of the launch of IPO. He is competitive with more established two-wheeled giants, along with the increasing regulatory control.

Ola scooters' sales are reduced to less than half of April last year and the company's losses have expanded. Customers have posted videos on Ola Scoters social media, which are on fire or destroying the middle of the ride.

A government inquiry is currently underway in hundreds of newly opened OLA exhibitions on licenses and registrations. One of his suppliers also filed a legal basis for bankruptcy against the company, which Ola said in a statement to the stock exchanges that he had settled.

The BBC has learned from former sources of employees and industries that delayed payments have led to many large suppliers and logistics partners who end their relationships.

OLA shortens jobs, restructures operations and automates features in an attempt to reduce costs and reduce losses. Media reports say it has taken a second round of November cuts, with over 1000 roles being connected.

The BBC has sent detailed questions to OLA on these issues. The company shared links to some of its more press statements about the press, without specifically answering all requests.

So what went wrong?

Ola Bhavish Aggarwal CEO positioned the company as the equivalent of the two -wheeled equivalent of Tesla, solving the issue of emissions for the Indian market sensitive.

He poured millions of marketing dollars, opening exhibition halls in India, even delivering scooters to the threshold of people who have made online reservations.

But Ola is struggling to read the market well, says Rohit Paradar, an analyst at the Overdrive Automotive Automotive.

Its scooter is modeled on the AppSCooter by Etergo, the Dutch Startup, which Ola Electric acquired in 2020.

Several former employees have told the BBC that OLA's first EV scooter has been launched without much changes to the ETERGO version. A former employee who worked in the compliance department told the BBC that the permits had been pressed to comply with the unrealistic start time.

In response to requests, Ola referred to October 2023. Blog post Where it turned to the “duties” that the vehicle “was not designed and tested for India”. It says he is “fully re -engineered” ethergo scooter and tested it for “Indian conditions”.

“The whole vehicle has been tested on three levels (for India) – digital simulations, component tests and tests for car laboratories and vehicle tests,” the publication said.

But several safety incidents reported by customers have raised questions.

Some scooters have started to ignite, which, saying that car experts are probably due to short circuits or a defective battery control system.

Ola recalled more than 1,400 first -generation scooters in 2022 to study the fires, but the report was not publicly published. She then said that battery systems were compatible with Indian and European standards, but did not explain what the fires caused.

Some motorcyclists also report the front suspension – which holds the wheel in place – breaks the middle of the ride, causing injuries.

At the beginning of 2023, after such an incident, Ola called it a rare case, noting that there were only a few such problems among 150,000 scooters.

According to them, the front fork had a significant margin of accident safety and was designed to handle 80% more workload than what it would usually experience during daily use.

In the meantime, Ola's rivals – mostly well -established car manufacturers – discarded smoothly electric scooters, adding to the pressure on the company.

Their entry shook the market. Ola's share was immersed from 52% to 19% to December, after which it recovered to 25% in January.

OLA aims to sell 50,000 pieces a month to become profitable, but analysts doubt the target, although the company said that the recent restructuring helped him to achieve $ 10 million monthly savings and faster deliveries.

Government data show that less than 10,000 scooters were sold in February, but OLA claimed 25,000, blaming the delays in registration for changes to the supplier contract. The Federal Ministry of Transport has issued notifications of the non -compliance. Ola said she registered over 23,000 scooters sold in March and had a 30% market share for the fiscal year.

But competitive scooters with fewer features now sell Ola, simply because they come from reliable, well-established brands, said Jay Kale, an executive vice president and a car analyst at Elara Capital.

To make sales, Ola offers deep discounts, making more new models at more expensive price points. But the losses expanded to $ 65 million in the quarter in October-December from $ 43.6MA a year ago.

In addition to product problems, the reliability of customer service is another major problem, Kale says.

When angry customers flooded social media and consumer lines with fires complaints and front stopping, their service requests were unanswered for days.

At one point, thousands of complaints were piling up a month, a former OLA employee told the BBC. The Consumer Rights Agency in India, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA), also sent a notice to OLA after receiving 10,000 complaints for the period of the year.

But since Ola had escaped from the dealer's well -known route in an attempt to sell directly to buyers and there were only a few service centers, the injured users had few places to turn to.

At the end of last year, OLA wrote to the CCPA that it had a “stable complaint address” mechanism and that the regulator was most relevant.

AGGARWAL initially rejected social media problems, but later announced that Ola would open nearly 4,000 service facilities after heated Public Exchange of X with a stand-comed comedian, who took the cause of customers.

However, the bigger part of these new centers came under the government's scanner for the lack of appropriate licenses for storing and selling vehicles.

On March 21, Ola confirmed investigations in four states and said it was responsible to the authorities.

The sharp turn in Ola's wealth is investors – especially those who have bought high IPO ratings – nervous.

Ola is a key player in India's impetus to reduce carbon emissions and expand production.

He takes advantage of two separate state subsidies, one to make scooters, and the second to create his own battery of 20 Gigawatt EV. But Reuters has reported that the expensive Gigafactory project is slowing down and missed a key main moment that potentially leads to penalties.

Critics claim that Ola's problems stem from typical culture problems that have hit many start-ups-influential decision-making, controlled by CEO, constant rotating and unrealistic high pressure terms.

“MindSets software do not work with hardware products that need time to build,” says Deepesh Rathore, which runs the Ola Electric product strategy and now manages the Insight EV consulting firm.

Some best leaders in the wider company have recently given up, including former CEO of Ola Cab, who has given up within months. The main leaders in technology, marketing, sales and business also left last year.

Experts say the outputs also influenced OLA's efforts to eliminate products and services problems.

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