Team-BHP - Ola S1 Electric Scooter Review

I have ola S1 since September 2022 and have clocked 9300kms on it so far. Never faced a single issue nor got any servicing done and feeling lucky for that. Do I like Ev 2 wheelers - 100%. Will I buy it again - there is no going back to ICE. Will I recommend Ola - considering they are clocking 40k units a month I feel they will improve service or atleast FNG's will be ready to take over except the battery part.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Castro Gunner (Post 5840083)

My colleague bought an Ola S1 pro 2 weeks back.
From day 2, the bike was not working and is still in ASC.
Government should really intervene

Hundreds if not thousand Ola scooters are laying in many service centers across the country. My belief is, Bhavish only wanted to sell electric scooters just like a mobile phone or a stereo. He had no plans for servicing. What he should do is open Ola spare shops across the country and train local mechanics to outsource the service job.

https://twitter.com/bhash/status/1829388421548093587

The above indicates that Ola spares should be available soon and more resources for local mechanics to be able to service Ola scooters is on the cards. This is a step in the right direction.

Of course if there is an issue in the scooter it should be fixed in the authorised service center. But considering the sorry state of affairs, atleast the consumers have another option if getting it fixed at an FNG.

It is my observation, most of the OLA scooters running are in bad shape like worn out paint, dented etc. I feel there is serious quality issue with Ola. At same time, I rarely spot any ATHER or TVS IQUOBE in such state. Most of the Athers look like as new as just came out from showroom.
I have 12-year-old Vespa Sport which is in much better shape physically than most of scooters except for Athers and TVS.
eScooters will have same fate as android phones like Redmi, LAVA, Realme, Intex and many unbranded one. To survive long term in India, quality and durability is must.

Bengaluru woman hangs placard in her Ola scooter "Do not buy Ola scooter..." calls it a 'dabba'.

Such is the condition of the buyers.

https://inshorts.com/en/amp_news/b-luru-woman-hangs--don-t-buy-ola-electric--poster-on-scooter--calls-it--dabba--1726379933311

This showroom is close to my house. The Chetak showroom next door had to put up a sign that the parking if front of the shop is for Chetak EV customers as the Ola parking lot was full and people started parking in front of the Chetak showroom.
The video is mostly in Konkani but it's not to difficult to understand what the issue is. It's the same as the res of the country.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnujCeEYq-s

The Ola story summarised:
- Buy a European company that has already designed and produced a nice scooter.
- Adapt the scooter for "Indian Conditions" (essentially do some cost cutting and make it worse).
- Promote it as an Indian scooter.
- Make huge promises on delivery.
- Break those promises and delay / goof up deliveries,
- Cheat customers who have booked the S1.
- Develop software that makes it randomly run in reverse.
- Cut down on quality control and have the front suspension break.
- Update the original by doing a roadside mechanic style modification and call it Gen 2.
- Launch some more cheap hub motor models.
- Give such pathetic service that customers have to resort to burning scooters and showrooms, getting the scooter towed by donkeys etc.

Normally it's sad for a company to loose business, I'm actually happy the sales of Ola are falling just because the CEO is so arrogant.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedrolourenco (Post 5849455)

The Ola story summarised:
- Buy a European company that has already designed and produced a nice scooter..

It was never really produced or sold by Etergo.

Quoting an article by Inc42

Quote:

“Although the first public funding (crowdfunding) happened via Seedrs, the owners of the company later used their own website to gather and raise funds, as they started getting momentum for their brand… Everything was fine until late 2019, and I got some email from the (investor relations) team promising that the scooter would be delivered by March 2020, and then suddenly it was sold to an Indian company by May 2020, and none of us got any such heads, and I learnt from the news itself,” says an Amsterdam-based investor who picked up shares worth €5,000 in Etergo in 2017.

Quote:

Originally Posted by pedrolourenco (Post 5849455)

Normally it's sad for a company to loose business, I'm actually happy the sales of Ola are falling just because the CEO is so arrogant.

The thing is, there is a thin line between a genius and insanity.
Similarly, I believe that there is a thin line between arrogance and real mettle.

As a society we need some people who are very ambitious. Its some of those people who can drive a large part of innovations. If we have say a 100 of such people in India, we can bet that say 1 of them will surely become a global leader. I think Bhavesh is one such person.

Ignore his antics and his arrogance while speaking. But, he did pull off a Cab service that rivals a global company like Uber. He did pull off building a scooter company (the fact that its European may have given him a good platform, but India is very different). If every European design was so good, all euro cars should have been stellar - but no. This shows that Indian problems are very different and need different solutions.

So, i think Ola has built something no one else has - and it has a long road to go. I hope it makes the right choices so we can be proud of it in the coming years.