India-based Ola Electric unveiled the Ola Hypercharger Network, the charging network for its upcoming electric two-wheeler products starting with the Ola Scooter to be launched in the coming months. Ola plans to offer the most comprehensive set of charging options to its electric vehicle customers through a combination of widely deployed high-speed Ola Hyperchargers and the home-charger that will come bundled with the Ola Scooter.

The Ola Hypercharger Network will be the widest and densest electric two-wheeler charging network in the world, with more than 100,000 charging points across 400 cities. In the first year alone, Ola is setting up more thean 5,000 charging points across 100 cities in India, more than double the existing charging infrastructure in the country.

Ola Hypercharger will also be the fastest two-wheeler charging network. The Ola Scooter can be charged 50% in just 18 minutes for a 75 km (47-mile) range. Ola Hyperchargers will be widely deployed across cities and will be found in city centers and dense business districts as stand alone towers as well as in popular locations such as malls, IT parks, office complexes, cafes and more, ensuring that Ola Electric customers always have a Hypercharger nearby.

The Ola Hypercharger network, being built by Ola along with partners, will be complemented by the home charger that will be bundled with the Ola Scooter. The home charger will require no installation and will provide Ola customers the convenience of charging at home by simply plugging into a regular wall socket for overnight charging.

Electric is the future of mobility and we are reimagining the entire user experience of owning an electric vehicle. Our plans to build a comprehensive charging network is a key piece of this. By creating the world’s largest and densest two-wheeler charging network, we will dramatically accelerate the customer adoption of electric vehicles and rapidly move the industry to electric.

—Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman and Group CEO, Ola

Ola Hypercharger network will offer an effortless and seamless charging experience to Ola customers. They have to simply arrive at a charging location and plug their scooter into the charging point. Customers can easily monitor the charging progress in real time on the Ola Electric app and the same app can be used to seamlessly pay for the charging as well.

Commenting on the Hypercharger Network announcement, Bakar Sadik Agwan, Senior Automotive Consulting Analyst at GlobalData, noted:

Ola’s plan to establish its own strong network of charging stations will be a use case for robust two-wheeler electric ecosystem once implemented successfully. Presently, with the availability of a wide range of EV products, particularly in two-wheeler segment, factors such as range-anxiety, unavailability of charging stations and long charging time are few factors restraining the market growth. The move will further boost customer confidence in the electric vehicles (EVs).

The electric two-wheeler market in India is presently 150,000 units strong. However, the market witnessed a decline of 6% to 143,837 units in FY2021, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With significant efforts from the manufacturers and other stakeholders to develop a robust EV ecosystem, the sales are expected to grow at a faster rate in near to mid-term. While there has been increased OEM partnerships to enhance charging infrastructure like the recent Hero MotoCorp and Taiwanese electric scooter maker Gogoro to develop battery-sharing infrastructure in India, significant government efforts through new policies and charger deployment are expected to boost EV volumes.”

Ola Scooter will be manufactured at the Ola Futurefactory which is being built in Tamil Nadu, India, with its first phase to be ready this summer. Ola selected ABB as one of its key partners for robotics and automation solutions for the mega-factory in India, billed to be the world’s largest scooter factory.

Ola will utilize ABB’s automation solutions in its factory’s key manufacturing process lines, including its painting and welding lines, while the ABB robots will be deployed extensively for the battery and motor assembly lines. These include ABB’s “IRB 5500” paint and “IRB 2600” Integrated Dressing robots in its painting and welding lines, and “IRB 6700” robots for assembly and material handling in the battery and motor assembly areas.

Ola is building its mega-factory on Industry 4.0 principles and to be powered by its own proprietary AI Engine and tech stack that will be deeply integrated into all its systems, continuously self-learning and optimising every aspect of the manufacturing process. This will provide a high degree of control, automation and quality to the entire operations, especially with Ola’s implementation of cyber-physical and advanced IoE systems.

Initial annual capacity is planned to be 2 million units.

Ola is India’s largest mobility platform and one of the world’s largest ride-hailing companies.