Ola Electric is known for its low-cost and high-performance electric scooters, but the company has previously teased the idea of adding two more wheels and producing full-size electric cars. Now we’re getting a better idea of what an Ola electric car might look like.
After dropping hints months ago about a potential four-wheeler, Ola’s CEO Bhavish Aggarwal took to Twitter yesterday to tease the idea further.
Aggarwal regularly replies directly to customers, and yesterday he responded to a customer who added an Ola scooter to the family’s car garage by saying that the next car replacement should be one of Ola’s future electric cars.
Today he followed up by releasing a rendering of the previously teased vehicle.
The electric hatchback features an aerodynamic design that sees the glass windshield continue into a glass roof across the top of the vehicle. The car sports four doors but no visible door handles, and has an LED light bar across the front fascia.
Many of these elements appear to be borrowed from popular electric cars available today, and this is of course just a rendering that may or may not ever see the light of the day. If it does, the ultimate design will surely require modification, such as the inclusion of true headlights, mirrors, a set of windshield wipers, and other nods to functionality and legal requirements.
The Indian mobility company Ola Electric has only recently reached a production rate of 1,000 electric scooters per day, and so any talk of an electric car from Ola may sound premature.
But if any company can rapidly accelerate the production process, Ola may be it.
The company went from an announcement of plans to build a 2 million units-per-year electric scooter FutureFactory to having a functioning manufacturing line in a matter of months.
An electric car would certainly be a much larger undertaking for the company, but the amount of cash currently flowing into Ola could certainly help fund its development.
Just yesterday, Ola announced a new US $200 million funding round that put the company at a US $5 billion valuation.
That’s far from Tesla valuation territory, but is nonetheless quite impressive for a fledgling electric scooter company.
And with Ola already pledging to make its electric scooters available in the US this year, the development of an Ola electric car raises the question of potential exports as well.
What do you think? Will we be seeing an Ola electric car anytime soon? Let’s hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
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