Speaking at a private company event, Ola and Ola Electric founder Bhavish Aggarwal admitted that while there may be more electric vehicle fires in the future, he believed they would be rare incidents.
The electric vehicle unicorn has been under the spotlight ever since one of their S1 Pro electric scooters caught fire in March. They were forced to issue a recall of 1,400 units last month, and appointed an external expert to investigate the problem.
“Will there be occurrences in the future, there might be,” Aggarwal responded to a question about the fire. “But our commitment is that we will make sure we analyse every issue, and if there are fixes to be done we will fix them.”
The industry as a whole has been through a bad few weeks with multiple scooter fires occurring across other companies as well. Both Okinawa and Pure EV have seen their scooters catch fire, with an unfortunate customer in Telangana losing his life due to an incident with the latter.
Okinawa has recalled over 3000 units, while Pure EV has also recalled more than 2000 units. However, the government has also launched their own investigation into the matter.
Minister of Road and Transportation Nitin Gadkari recently tweeted that the government has constituted a committee to look into the incidents, and that if any company is found to be negligent, “a heavy penalty will be imposed and a recall of all defective vehicles will also be ordered.”
