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While Bhavish Aggarwal-led Ola Electric keeps publicising its experiments and innovations in the electric vehicle (EV) segment, the sales of its electric scooters seem to be on a decline without any clear signs of recovery.

Ola Electric’s escooter registrations declined for the fourth straight month in August, and the startup ranked sixth in terms of two-wheeler EV registrations at 3,429 units, as per Vahan data on September 3.

The startup’s registrations declined 11.2% in August from 3,862 units in July. In comparison with April this year, when Ola Electric saw its highest registrations, the number was down 73% in August.

The electric mobility startup was not immediately available to explain the reasons behind the decline in registrations of its EVs.

Ola Electric announced the launch of a new and affordable escooter model Ola S1 in mid-August. It remains to be seen if it helps the startup in increasing its registrations.

The decline in registrations for Ola Electric continued despite a steady increase in the overall electric two-wheeler registrations in the country in August. The total electric two-wheeler registrations grew 13% month-on-month (MoM) to 50,414 units in August, with Hero Electric leading the chart.

However, it is pertinent to note that the fall in Ola Electric’s escooter registrations in August was lower on a MoM basis when compared to the sharp decline over the last three months. 

The decline in Ola Electric’s two-wheeler demand began after several users started reporting issues with its escooters, including fire incidents. While it was not the only company whose escooters caught fire in India, it faced more backlash on social media as users reported several other safety issues, alleged delays in delivery, among other problems.

Despite that, Ola Electric announced its plans to launch its electric four-wheeler last month, setting a deadline for the launch in 2024.

Aggarwal also claimed that it would be “one of the fastest cars built in India”.

Meanwhile, the startup has claimed to have already taken up the task of manufacturing EV battery cells in the country. Ola Electric plans to build three factories to support its overall EV business – a 40-acre two-wheeler factory, a 100-acre cell plant, and a 200-acre four-wheeler factory.

Amid this, in a statement on Thursday (September 1), Ola Electric said it sold 10,000 units of its latest EV two-wheeler Ola S1 within 24 hours of opening the booking window for early reservations.

Overall EV 2W Registrations

In August, the overall electric two-wheeler registrations in India crossed the 50,000 mark for the first time since March this year. Hero Electric topped the chart with total vehicle registrations of 10,479 units versus 8,954 units in July and 6,505 in June, as per Vahan data.

After witnessing a decline of two months in May and June following multiple fire incidents with its escooters, Okinawa Autotech seems to have got back on track as its vehicle registrations grew for the second straight month to 8,557 units.

On the other hand, Ather Energy saw the highest rise in vehicle registrations in August. Its registrations rose 4X to 5,258 units last month from 1,289 units in July. 

It is pertinent to note that legacy automobile players like Hero MotoCorp, TVS Motors, and Bajaj Auto are also making their moves in the two-wheeler EV segment and are slowly but steadily starting to take prime positions in the EV segment.