Ola Electric's two-wheeler deliveries more than double in March

Softbank-backed Ola Electric has significantly increased delivery of its electric scooters in March with registrations increasing to 9,121 vehicles in March from just 3,904 units in February, according to auto retail sales data supplied by the Federation of Automobile Dealers Association (FADA).

With deliveries more than doubling, the company became the second largest electric two wheeler seller in March- only behind market leader Hero Electric.

The jump in delivery vehicles came after two months of teething issues at the company which saw its delivery falling short of announced production.

Ola Electric had sold just 1,102 units in January while the company claimed to have increased production to 1,000 a day.

While co-founder Bhavish Aggarwal had said that, Ola electric scooter deliveries are expected to touch 15,000 in March which would have propelled the company to become the No 1 electric two-wheeler company in India in terms of sales.

However, the company, thanks to increased deliveries has increased its market share to 6.21 percent for the full year FY 22.

The company has invested Rs 2,400 crore in building the largest EV manufacturing facility in the country, Ola Electric has set big targets in terms of production volumes and sales.

The response was phenomenal, with Ola claiming bookings worth around Rs 1,100 crore in just two days. This was last year in September, when the company had opened bookings for the first time.

After ramping up production of electric scooters to 1,000 a day in the first week of January, start-up giant Ola Electric has managed to sell just a fraction of that number during the entire month.

The Bengaluru-based company sold just 1,102 electric scooters in January.

The data which is sourced in collaboration with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highway, is sourced from nearly 87 per cent of the country’s regional transport offices (RTO).

The company has been at the receiving end of consumer’s ire for delaying the delivery of the vehicle with several of them taking to social media to explain their position.

However, analysts said that since the industry is at a nascent stage, the pecking order can change rapidly. “These company wise outperformers or underperformers would rapidly change based on which company ramps up capacity in whichever month. Most of the outperformers like Hero Electric, Pur Energy, Okinawa, Ampere which outperformed MoM this month were underperformers last month,” said analysts at Elara Capital.

Hero Electric Vehicles Pvt., which dominates the local electric two-wheeler market with 28% share, sold 65,303 units in fiscal 2022 versus 14,771 in the previous year. Sales of Okinawa Autotech Pvt., with 20 percent market share, jumped 566 percent to 46,447 this year, while Ola Electric Mobility Pvt. sold 14,371 units and controls 6.2 percent of the sector.

Electric two-wheelers are expected to witness increased demand in coming months. One key reason is fuel prices, which are likely to increase substantially. Crude oil prices have touched 14-year high and may rise further.

As many as 800,000 electric vehicles will be sold in India in the year through March 2023, compared with 429,217 units in the previous period, said Vinkesh Gulati, president of the Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations.