E-scooter fires rare but can happen in future: Ola's Bhavish Aggarwal

 Ola’s e-scooter fire was among a spate of similar recent incidents that triggered an uproar on social media and an investigation by the Indian government

There may be more fires in electric scooters in the future, but such incidents are very rare, Ola Electric’s Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Aggarwal said at a private company event, after safety concerns were heightened by a fire in one of its scooters in March. Ola’s e-scooter fire was among a spate of similar recent incidents that triggered an uproar on social media and an investigation by the Indian government.

The company has recalled more than 1,400 e-scooters and appointed external experts to investigate the cause. “Will there be occurrences in the future, there might be,” Aggarwal responded, when asked a question about the fires at a private event on Sunday. “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,” he said, according to a recording from the event reviewed by Reuters. He described the fires as being “very rare and isolated” in a recording from the event, at which the company previewed a new operating system for its e-scooters.

Sachin Bansal puts Rs 888 cr in investment vehicle, renames it Navi Tech

Since exiting Flipkart last year, he has invested in start-ups, including Ola, Ather, Vogo, privately and through his investment vehicle BAC Acquisitions

Billionaire entrepreneur Sachin Bansal has infused more money into his investment vehicle BAC Acquisitions and renamed it Navi Technologies, company filings reveal.

The Flipkart co-founder has invested Rs 888.50 crore, approximately $123 million, in Navi Technologies, which was set up as BAC Acquisitions in December 2018. Documents from the Registrar of Companies sourced through Tofler show Sachin Bansal bought 68.3 million shares at Rs 130 apiece over two tranches in October. Of these, 11.5 million shares were bought with cash (approximately Rs 150 crore), which comes as fresh infusion in the company. The rest were issued against financial securities, according to the documents.

“The funds have been infused in Navi Technologies to enable the company to scout for growth opportunities, organic and inorganic, in the broad financial sector space. With funds in the balance sheet, Navi Technologies will be able to move quickly to capture opportunities as they arise,” said a spokesperson of Sachin Bansal, in an emailed response.

The development comes close on the heels of Bansal buying a microfinance, which he now leads. In September, he announced his second innings as an entrepreneur by buying majority shares in Chaitanya Rural Intermediation Development Services, which runs the microfinance institution, Chaitanya India Fin Credit. The company is 10 years old and headquartered in Bengaluru.

Self-drive car sharing service ‘Ola Drive’ launched: All you should know

SoftBank-backed Ola intends to host a fleet of 20,000 cars by 2020

Ride-hailing firm Ola on Thursday unveiled ‘Ola Drive’, a self-drive car-sharing service. The service has been initially rolled out for users in Bengaluru with Hyderabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi to follow shortly.

To build and scale up the service across several Indian cities, Ola ride intends to host a fleet of 20,000 cars by 2020, 50 per cent more than the fleet size of the entire industry put together. Initially, the SoftBank-backed company plans to invest about $200 million for the new platform and aims to increase this investment up to $500 million in the next couple of years, said the firm.

The development would further deepen Ola’s battle with US rival Uber to capture the mobility market in India as well as take on early self-drive car-rental players such as Mahindra-backed Zoomcar and Revv, which counts Hyundai Motors among its investors. With over 200 million subscribers, the company said that ‘Ola Drive’ has the largest user base for a car-sharing service in the country.

“Ola has been deep-rooted in India’s mobility landscape, building technology-enabled transportation solutions for millions of users. Our expertise in serving millions of customers through a large fleet of vehicles across 250 plus cities has been instrumental in making ride-hailing a norm in India,” said Arun Srinivas, chief sales and marketing officer, at Ola. “Ola Drive has been built on the same DNA and will play a transformative role in defining India’s car-sharing market in the next decade.”

Ola to soon showcase its own concept three-wheeler electric vehicle

The company, according to sources, could manufacture the electric vehicle on its own, or get into an arrangement where it has a complete control over the process of manufacturing the vehicle

BS- Bhavish Aggarwal-led home-grown cab aggregator Ola is set to showcase its concept three-wheeler electric vehicle, based on feedback from its multi-modal electric-vehicle project on the Ola platform in Nagpur. The company has already started talks with a bevy of potential vendors who could supply the components, the most important of which is the lithium battery from across the world to roll out a commercial model. The battery, according to experts, accounts for over 50 per cent of the vehicle cost.

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According to sources, Ola could be open to manufacturing the electric vehicle on its own as an option or get into an arrangement where it has complete control of the process of manufacturing the vehicle. A final decision on the commercialisation aspect for the vehicle, however, has still to be taken. Ola’s multi-modal project, in which electric cars, autos, buses and e-rickshaws ran in tandem in Nagpur, with a mileage of over 5 million kilometres, offered the company valuable data insights on the challenges of building a e-vehicle ground-up for Indian markets. When contact, a spokesperson for Ola declined to comment on the proposed showcasing of the electric vehicle.|Ola Three Wheeler

The EV space has become more attractive lately, with changes to the country’s enabling policy for such vehicles. Now, permits required for commercial use of such vehicles has been scrapped. This will go a long way in reducing the total cost of acquiring a vehicle. Earlier, the limited number permits that were issued were sometimes sold in the black market. Also, with the government now planning to permit individuals to run their own electric-vehicle charging stations, there will soon be an ecosystem for the proliferation of such EV infrastructure.

Flipkart's PhonePe ties up with Ola, bets on micro-apps for growth

Through the AutoPay feature, users can link their credit or debit card for an Ola ride in the PhonePe app once, and the ride-fare would automatically be paid at the end of every ride

Flipkart-owned digital payments firm PhonePe has tied up with homegrown cab aggregator Ola, where users can book a cab or an auto using a micro-app built on its payments platform.

The company has gone live with three such micro-apps, including that of redBus and Metro services, and plans to go live with 5 to 10 more in the ongoing quarter.

“Ola’s scale and reach, topped with our AutoPay feature will enable greater convenience and control to our users while making payments seamless,” said Rahul Chari, co-founder and chief technology officer, PhonePe.

ALSO READ: Flipkart's digital payments arm PhonePe crosses 100-million user mark

The company, which has built its payments platform primarily on top of the National Payments Corp of India’s Unified Payments Interface (UPI), crossed the 100-million user milestone last month.

Through the AutoPay feature, users can link their credit or debit card for an Ola ride in the PhonePe app once, and the ride-fare would automatically be paid at the end of every ride.

The company has already integrated mobile wallets such as FreeCharge and Jio Money on its platform to give more options to users.

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Mr Gadkari, allowing driverless cars will generate more high-paying jobs

Autonomous vehicles are the logical next step for cab aggregators like Ola and Uber

economy news: Nagpur, the home town of Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, is now a laboratory to test electric vehicles for public transport in India.

Cab aggregator Ola is testing a model that uses electric auto rickshaws, cars, and buses to make adoption of electric vehicles for mass transport viable. If the Nagpur experiment succeeds, Ola will execute the promise by its investor, Japanese internet firm Softbank, of running over a million electric vehicles across India. This vision requires massive investments in cars, buses, and the charging infrastructure. In addition, investments are also required in batteries, which India currently imports.

Both Ola and Uber have an asset-light model — they don't own the cars that run on their platforms. Instead, the cars are leased by the drivers, who repay the loans, spend on maintaining the cars, and then earn enough to fend for themselves. In scale, electric cars have better efficiency and are cheaper to run for more miles than fossil fuel-powered cars.

Till 2016, Ola and Uber splurged billions to woo thousands of drivers to their respective platforms. However, as the taps turned dry and investors pushed them towards profitability, they cut incentives for the drivers and increased prices. This move saw several thousand drivers and customers move away from the respective platforms. There are hundreds of cars on sale now as drivers are finding running on either platform unviable.

The country has seen a spate of protests from drivers seeking government intervention. In this context, Gadkari's statement that driverless cars will not be allowed in India in order to save jobs appears to be aimed at pacifying the unrest among drivers.

The electric cars vision is nice till Ola reaches a certain scale. Ola needs to make profits for itself and its investors. When the network effect comes into play, the winner dominates the market and the runner up becomes a distant second. Google and Facebook have become monopolies because of this network effect — the more users a company has, the harder it will get for rivals to compete with it.

So, after ensuring that there are thousands of electric vehicles on Indian roads and make it a habit for users to use their platform like they did for diesel run cars, their next logical move would be to look at autonomous vehicles.

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Uber, Ola battle it out for railway passengers: Here's how it will work

 After fighting it out on roads, cab aggregators like Uber and Ola are set to come face to face on railway tracks. Both the players are now in race to tie up with the Indian Railways to offer services to train travellers.

With the Suresh Prabhu-led railways ministry toying with the idea to offer space for cab operators at railway stations, both the market leaders have started the battle to garner the railways' market share. Through this initiative, the Railways is likely to add an additional Rs 120 crore to its non-fare revenue.

As per the plan, those users who book tickets through Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) app will be able to schedule a ride with a cab aggregator on a future date and time. If the Railways moves ahead with the plan, it will have to float a tender for this from the concerned parties. The other major service providers in the sector are Baxi, Shuttl, Meru and BlaBlaCar. Though the San Francisco-based Uber is aggressively moving ahead in Indian market, Ola still holds a majority share.

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