Ola Electric teases an electric car that it doesn’t have

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Editor's note: There’s one word to describe Bhavish Aggarwal’s virtual event on 15 August: disappointing. The live stream by the founder and CEO of Ola and Ola Electric wasn’t just a run-of-the-mill press event; it was uninspiring—like going to Disneyland only to find the rides closed for maintenance. Let’s look closely at the three key announcements made at the event. Ola Electric’s S1 scooter was relaunched at Rs 99,999. Bookings are underway and deliveries will start in September. Launched alongside the sportier S1 Pro in August 2021, the S1 was not released earlier because of overheating issues (we wrote about the problem here, two days before the company started delivering scooters in December 2021). It took Ola Electric nine months to sort out the issue, roughly the same time it took to design and build its scooters initially. Aggarwal also unveiled a battery module made from cells developed in-house and said it would be part of the company’s products by the end of 2023. The announcement was incremental at best, since the company had already unveiled the indigenous cell—the NMC 2170—last month.  …