[vivekgk]

Hi,

I am one of those "Early Adopters" a.k.a Test Mules for the new Ola S1 Air. I booked mine in July, paid full price upfront, endured ever-changing delivery timelines, and after a frankly disappointing and lacklusture delivery experience, finally took delivery of my S1 Air on 27th September. It cost me just under 1.38 lacs OTR at Trivandrum, with full cover insurance, the extended warranty and the Ola Care+ package. At the time, it was a good deal considering every other comparable option was more than 1.5 lacs.



Since this was my first EV, I was initially pleasantly surprised. It was smooth, the ride+handling was great, and it had good performance on offer in all modes, considering what it cost. As I was riding a 15 year old Mahindra Flyte before, this was quite an upgrade in every way. I did find it a bit too tall for my height, but it was otherwise OK. The switchgear was terrible, and the touch screen was occasionally slow to respond, but that I could live with.

The Flies in the Soup...

But all was not perfect. I was not getting the promised range. Although the scooter showed 100 kms+ range in NORMAL mode after a full charge, it dropped off very rapidly. It even dropped off abnormally when parked. I'd park it in our office basement in the morning, and come back in the evening to see a 3-5% or more battery drop.

Another issue was that the touch screen would sometimes stop responding, an issue that would usually resolve after a reboot, as instructed by the app. Sometimes though the scooter would seem to get stuck in the reboot loop, with the OLA logo turning off and on repeatedly. This was fixed by the technicians by restarting again.

I also faced an issue where the horn and the switches stopped working. Somehow I managed to get it working after a couple more reboots, and got it to a service centre. They checked it, and I caught a mechanic saying how "this one too is having the same issue" to someone over the phone. They said they fixed it and gave the scooter back to me within 20 minutes. That issue hasn't recurred.

Once, I forgot to charge the scooter, and set off to office when there was just about 25% charge remaining. My office is just 3 kms away, so I didn't think it would be an issue. I reached office with about 20% remaining. However, in the evening, the charge had dropped to about 15%. And to my horror, it jerked and stopped when I tried to start it for the ride home. I called up the dealer for assistance, and they said that it should be able to go till at least 2-3% before cutting off. I finally took an Uber home, retrieved the charger, returned to office and plugged it in at the Security Guards' room where there was an outlet. The next morning, the charge had only gone upto 74% despite it having been plugged in for at least 8 hours. This happened for the next couple charges, with the screen showing "Unable to Charge" after about 70-75%.

Somehow, this issue disappeared on its own and the scooter started charging to 100% again. I had a mostly uneventful week after that.

A Preview of Things to Come???

Then, a couple of weeks ago, while I was riding in Eco mode with about 30% charge remaining, the scooter lost power in mid traffic. I checked and the screen and it showed something like "0% charge remaining, switching to park mode". Luckily, I was able to pull to the roadside without incident. The screen now showed 0% battery. I was completely stranded and with no warning. Once I regained my composture, I rebooted the scooter, and Bam, the charge was now showing 23%. I cancelled the trip and limped back home in Eco mode, and put the scooter to charge. I also reported the issue on my Ola app.

The Real Nightmare Begins...

A couple of days later, I was about to leave for office in the morning with a remaining charge of 50%, when the scooter again just jerked and stopped. I tried rebooting, but this time it was of no use. And that's how I was introduced to the nightmare of Ola Service at Trivandrum.

I immediately requested for emergency assistance, but no one responded even by noon. Finally, I called up their customer care, who assured me that they would send out a technician to diagnose the issue. I also called the dealership (who wouldn't give a contact number for their service team) and they too promised to send out a tech. This calling went on for about 3 days, with me calling and begging customer care every day, before they sent someone out to check out the scooter. In between, I visited the service centre, and the staff there were unable to help as they were understaffed.

I had taken RSA with Ola Care+, which has unlimited pickup and puncture assistance. But the funny thing is that they do not prioritise your pickup if your vehicle is at a safe parking spot or at home. While this does make sense, it is frustrating to have to waste several days and repeated calls to customer care for someone to attend your issue.

The person who came to check out the Scooter confirmed that it was a battery issue, and asked me to inform the service centre to initiate a pickup. Again, I started calling the customer care, the dealer, the service centre repeatedly for another 3 days, before they would initiate a Tow. The Tow service took another couple of days to pick up the Scooter and take it to the service centre.

Since then, I have been calling them every day to ask about the status of the scooter. Initially, they answered the phone and told me that the Battery Pack had to be replaced, and that it had not yet been approved. Apparently, 11 S1 Air scooters are at the dealership, waiting for a battery replacement, and it does not seem to be happening any time soon.

So that's the story of how I spent 1.4 lacs on an Ola S1 Air, to use it for about a month (actual use). Now it's at the service centre for God knows how long, and the Service Centre is now refusing to answer my calls or call me back.

Personally, I would advise anyone who is planning to buy an Ola right now to put it off., or buy something better, like an Ather, a Chetak, or a TVS. The Gen2 seems to have glaring issues, and Ola seems to have learnt little from their debacle with the Gen 1s. And their service is as horrible as the Youtube videos make it out to be. I had spoken to a couple of owners who said they had not had any issues, but apparently, if you have a real issue, you're out of luck.

If anyone has any pull with someone at Ola, please help me out to get my scooter repaired.

[Aditya]

Ola S1 Air Stellar Blue | My ongoing Nightmare of an Ownership Experience - Post moved to a new thread.

[shancz]

Sad to hear about your ordeal and unfortunately not the only one. The bunch of issues I have already seen on the forum related to the product and service show a pattern which reflects poorly on Ola's management of operations.

While I had thought that the ICE scooters can be easily replaced by their EV counterparts owing to their usage, now I take that with a caution as your workhorse not being operational is not an option for most, me included.

Ola is definitely not on that list, wasn't before and out for good. Seems like all their efforts are being targeted at social media instead of ground operations.
Most important being their reluctance to admit mistakes like the suspension issues and the battery, software and breakdowns.

[JayPrashanth]

While I'm sorry to hear your travails with the Ola S1 Air, I hope this thread serves as a wake up call for others who are contemplating Ola's poorly engineered and manufactured electric scooters.

It's almost as though new buyers don't care about product quality, or the lack of it. Ola has just sold 30,000 electric scooters - their highest ever - in November 2023.

The Ather 450X is a far better alternative, and so is the TVS iQube, or for that matter even the Bajaj Chetak. It's high time that Ola is held accountable, and the best way to make it happen is by dumping the S1 range for better quality alternatives.

Cheers,

Jay

[navpreet318]

Originally Posted by JayPrashanth

.....

It's almost as though new buyers don't care about product quality, or the lack of it. .....

Spot on. I'm stumped by it too. Forget that I'm an Ather dealer, that Ather scooter is a robust scooter.
I've put 2 of them in my Hero Dealership for staff and technician use. For numerous jobs as well as by technicians and helpers for getting some urgent parts or hardware or fetching the gas occasional gas cylinder or anything else.

Those guys abuse it to no end. I mean I've seen them go flying off on warp mode and making it jump off speed breakers. 2 up with 2 gas cylinders in tow. Or a 20L deisel can for the generator.
Oh and it's saved me a monthly 10K in petrol expense as well.
I'm actually stumped by how solid and well built the 450X is!! Absolute tank!

And yet we're selling miniscule numbers compared to Ola. Everyone knows the problems. It's like all of that goes into the back burner when taking out the cash.

iCube and chetak are great products as well. Solidly built.

[salluks]

Sorry to hear what you have to deal with. I also contemplated buying it after booking it at 89K when it was initially announced. Eventually went with iQube due to bad reviews on OLA and guess that was a good decision.

[Burgman_tales]

There are tons of threads on tbhp, Twitter everywhere on how unreliable and full of issues Ola scooters are. I don't understand how they keep selling so many of them

[indie_honda]

Its getting worse day by day, I own a Ola S1 pro which was delivered to me in Jan. Initially faced a lot of issues right from battery suddenly going dead to panel noises, stuck brake, faulty break lever. Recently I had to call RSA (otherwise my vehicle wouldn't have been attended, based on my experience) since the side stand sensor was faulty and could not detect being on or off, which didn't allow me to get the vehicle out of park mode. There is tremendous workload on service centers and the appointments are full, there is literally rage in customers based on numerous occasions I have been there. Hundreds of vehicles lying in parking and on road waiting to be attended. And with no end to new half baked models being rolled out this is surely not the end..

[vamsi.vadrevu]

I think Ola's Battery management and software side of things haven't matured enough to be a reliable 2 wheeler. I'm sorry to hear your ordeal vivekgk. Perhaps it would be best if you got rid of it and got yourself an Ather. It's a financial loss but peace of mind and reliability matter more.

Would it be feasible for all the affected Ola customers to bunch together and sue the brand. They are taking their customers for a ride. I'm sure there are thousands of dissatisfied customers. At the very least, it would make the mainstream news and their sales will take a hit which might knock some sense into them.

[GTO]

Hope your issues are resolved soon.

When people talk about "direct sales" and manufacturers bypassing dealers, this is what worries me the most. OEMs are used to thinking big and talking in the tens of thousands of sales units. Smaller tasks like servicing individual vehicles etc. are seen as too menial by the top guys.

Of course, some brands do it right (Apple, Ather based on what I keep reading), but many fail. Here is Ola, and there are enough horror stories online about Tesla's after-sales.

I believe that a good after-sales network by independent entrepreneurs / businessmen / dealers is a must-have for vehicle ownership.

[vivekgk]

There have been a ton of issues reported all over social media about the understaffed service centres of Ola. When I went to Ola's service centre at Muttathara, Trivandrum to ask about why no one was coming to take a look at my scooter, the workers there said they were helpless as they were woefully understaffed.

There were more than a hundred scooters parked in the yard, stretching out to the street, and more were being brought in. And to handle this, they had 3-4 people at most, and a workshop that's the size of a 2BHK, which can accomodate 5-6 vehicles at most. The person I spoke to said that the hired workers were quitting too fast, and they had to resort to bringing in trained staff from Chennai and other locations temporarily to handle the workload.

Unless there's a massive increase in the service capacity, I don't see the service getting better anytime soon. Which means it looks like my scooter is going to be stuck at the workshop for much longer. Ola on the other hand seems focused on sales and sales alone, and the impending IPO.

Another issue is that Ola has closed the service request for my Scooter from their end, and they have even sent me a message saying that the vehicle is repaired and ready for pick-up!! Now there is no way to track my service request in the app. They have even sent me a survey link asking them to "Rate their Service"!!!



I suspect that this is some fraud from their end to wash off their hands, in the event of litigation. They have even removed all of my past tickets from the app as well, and I am unable to see the chat history. Fortunately I have screenshots of eveything saved.

Is there any way I can file a case for a full refund, considering that the new vehicle has been rendered completely useless in less than 2 months of delivery, and the seemingly unending delays in repairs? I see cases where owners have been waiting for 2 months for a warranty battery replacement, and nothing seems to be happening. And even if I get the scooter working again, what guarantee is there that this battery too will not fail?

I called Ola Customer care again today morning, and they said that they would arrange a callback from the Service Centre, which of course didn't happen. I raised my concern about the service request being closed, but they said that this was a technical issue with the App, nothing more.

[N4Revv]

By viewing the launch event of Gen 2, I was sure that this is going to be a disaster at least for a while till they sort out bugs and quality issues with the updated battery and motor. In my opinion there was no need of changing the design of chassis, motor or battery. Only the change in front fork design and maybe the flat footboard was required and that’s it. They have created more problems in process of solving 1 problem. Gen 1 was better in battery and motor department, there were very less complaints compared to the Gen 2. In near future The problems are going to increase as OLA is looking to make batteries in house. That will be the ultimate test of the engineering/ R&D they are doing for years. Hope for the best.��

[Ev_junkie]

Truly horrible case of service experience. Suggest you to try and put it up on Twitter and tag ola. This works most of the time for you to get timely service. Hope your issue is resolved soon.

[RunGaDa]

Very consistent with the foolery this Bhavish guy is doing right from the start. Any other country he would be asked to do thousands of recall and pay hefty fines. In India as long as rich guy is not losing money it’s all okay.

[hemj]

Like Ev_junkie suggested Tag ola on X aka twitter. That's the only way to get them to respond and solve any issue. Nothing else works. I have tried and tested every other method. If no resolved, keep posting to the same thread. Somehow they are scared of tweets.