This isn’t your typical Inc42 article — it’s a reality check for India’s startup ecosystem.
Ola Electric, now public, faces a new level of scrutiny. No more startup bravado; it’s time for hard facts. As more Indian startups eye IPOs, industry giants like Ola and Bhavish Aggarwal set the standard.
Our fact-check isn’t just about one company—it’s about elevating transparency across the board. In the public arena, hype doesn’t cut it. We’re here to separate truth from fiction and raise the bar for accountability in India’s tech sector.
Ola Electric
founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal is known for making big and bold claims. While some of his more whimsical announcements like the April Fool’s jokes about ‘Ola Solo and Ola AirPro,’ have entertained many, issues arise when some of the other claims blur the line between claims and reality.
For instance, on August 15, 2022, Aggarwal announced plans to launch an Ola Electric car with a range of over 500 km and an acceleration from 0-100 km/h in less than 4 seconds by 2024.
While launching an electric vehicle is often regarded as easier than developing an internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle, this timeline seemed overly ambitious at the time, especially when established companies like Tata, Mahindra and others had spent over two years just testing a fully developed electric car.
In 2022, when the announcement was made, Ola Electric had not yet developed or tested the E4W platforms, sources previously confirmed to Inc42. At that time, they only had plans to launch six electric cars across two different platforms.
As of 2024, it’s become clear that developing such complex products takes more time than the headlines suggest; Ola has currently shelved its plans to build four-wheelers.
In 2022, the company even claimed that its Ola FutureFactory would produce 1 Mn electric four-wheelers (E4Ws), 10 Mn electric two-wheelers (E2Ws), and 100 GWh of battery cells per year from its Ola Gigafactory.
However, in its red herring prospectus, Ola Electric has not mentioned anything about the car, the company has yet to reach the 1 Mn E2Ws capability mark and has not delved into plans to go beyond 20 GWh.
“Bhavish Aggarwal knows how to stay in the news, and all this talk helps him carry out a free marketing campaign,” says the founder of an electric vehicle company. “He’s a great businessman who knows how to sell, while others, Ather for example, has led by building great products first, but struggle to generate the same level of hype.”
However, it’s not unusual for companies to set ambitious targets and later pivot for various reasons—this is the nature of startups. What’s problematic, though, are baseless claims and overblown promises.
“While it’s fascinating to see an Indian company directly taking on big techs, it is also noteworthy that Ola Electric is now a public company, and Bhavish Aggarwal must be more cautious about what he says in public,” said an investor who has exited from Ola Electric.
It’s inarguable that what Ola Electric has achieved so far is a rare feat as no other Indian electric vehicle company is even closer, not even in terms of vision. This is despite the fact that the company started from scratch and initially did not have any exposure to the EVs unlike the corporates Tata and Mahindra.
But are there holes in the claims which are a major part of this vision?
Despite Ola Electric now being a public company, Aggarwal made several claims during this year’s Independence Day event called Ola Sankalp that lack evidence or seem exaggerated. At the very least, the data seems to be cherry-picked. Let’s examine some of them.
Is Ola The Largest EV Company?
Claim: Right after a beautiful poem recited by Piyush Mishra, screen behind Aggarwal displayed, “Largest EV Company in the world” (*excluding China).”
While the founder and CEO further clarified this by saying Ola Electric is the largest electric two-wheeler company in the world, there’s something to be said about selling a particular perception even when it’s far from the truth.
And that’s before we even ask, why should China be excluded from the tally.
Fact: Ignoring a competitor doesn’t change the facts. Can you imagine a world without China? Excluding a country that makes up nearly 20% of the global population just to show a better ranking is facetious.
For the context, Yadea, a Chinese two wheeler maker sold over 16.5 Mn units (comprised of 4.9 Mn units of electric scooters and 11.6 Mn units of electric bicycles) of E2Ws in 2023 across 100+ countries and claims to be the number one E2W manufacturer in the world for the last seven years in a row. In contrast, Ola Electric sold around 3 Lakh scooters in 2023. Yadea recorded a revenue of $4.8 Bn in last four quarters.
Interestingly, Ola Krutrim later announced a partnership with Chinese tech giant Lenovo for a data centre. In fact, the displayed statement, ‘the largest EV company in the world’ was later contradicted by his own presentation.
The Largest EV Company Or The 5th Largest?
Claim: “Among all EV companies, we are the 5th largest EV company in the world by market cap, across all two-wheelers and four-wheelers. One day… we will be number one.”
Clearly, Aggarwal knows that Ola Electric is not the largest EV company in the world, even if he wants to exclude China.
Fact: In India, Ola Electric is not the 5th largest EV company by market valuation. It’s not the largest EV company in India either, as claimed.
While Ola Electric is currently valued at INR 58,699 Cr or roughly $7 Bn, Tata Passenger Electric Mobility Ltd. (TPEML) and Mahindra Electric Automobile Ltd. (MEAL) are both valued at about INR 82,000 Cr or about $10 Bn.
Moreover, the list shown in the presentation doesn’t specify that it includes only publicly listed companies. So here are the top EV companies in the world.
Is Ola Electric the 4th Largest EV Company by Revenue?
Claim: “By revenue, we are the fourth-largest EV company in the world… within three years.”
Fact: Again, Aggarwal and Ola Electric exclude China, but let’s move on from that.
Even then, the numbers still don’t support this claim. US-based Lucid Motors, for instance, registered higher revenue at $618 Mn (April 2023 to March 2024) vs Ola Electric’s $600 Mn (April 2023 to March 2024).
Another listed EV giant, Sweden’s Polestar reported revenue of $890 Mn in the period, but didn’t find mention in Aggarwal’s slides. Perhaps, because the parent company is Geely, a Chinese OEM.
And we must also point out that Ola Electric was incorporated back in 2017, so whatever revenue it has scaled up to now, has come in seven years, and not three as Aggarwal claimed. Indeed, the time spent in R&D and building the manufacturing infrastructure before the sales began was critical for Ola Electric’s revenue today.
Is Ola Gigafactory The First To Produce Cells in India?
Claim: Vishal Chaturvedi, the business head of Ola Cells, claimed Ola has built India’s first Lithium-ion cell manufacturing facility.
Fact: Log9 Materials, another cell manufacturing startup, claimed this spot in 2023, much before Ola had even laid the foundation for its facility.
In April 2023, Log9 commercially launched India’s first indigenously made Lithium-ion battery cell, manufactured at its Bengaluru facility. Log9’s cells were the first large-format, mass-produced cells to receive BIS certification in India in April 2024.
On the other hand, Ola Electric received BIS certification for its Bharat 4680 cells on May 13, 2024.
Is The Ola Gigafactory 100 GWh Capacity Just Clickbait?
Claim: During the presentation, Aggarwal reiterated his ambition of building the world’s largest 100 GWh Gigafactory in India.
Fact: We can put this down purely to ambition, because as per regulatory disclosures, Ola Electric did not disclose any plans for expanding beyond 20 GWh as of now, and that’s at the end of 2026.
The Moonshot: Bodhi, India’s First AI Chip by 2026
This is not so much a false claim, but rather a far-fetched notion — at least, at the moment. Arguably, the most critical announcement from the Ola group was the development of India’s first AI chip.
At the event, it was claimed that the Bodhi chip would be able to process 64K frames per second, outperforming the competition’s 55.7K frames per second, and is 33% more efficient.
But it’s said to be coming in 2026, so we don’t yet know how far the competition will reach. Chip giants might have a headstart over Ola Krutrim thanks to their existing architectures and expertise.
If successful, Ola Krutrim will become a rival to the likes of Nvidia, AMD, and Intel — all of which have seen some halcyon years as the AI revolution has resulted in a massive boom for processing power.
Ola has partnered with global companies such as ARM and Untether AI to build the chips, for AI, general compute, and edge compute.
But it’s quite obvious that designing, and manufacturing a chip is far more complex than just claiming raw performance improvements on paper.
It took Apple over a decade to perfect its Apple Silicon chips, for instance, and that’s just for very specific Apple-designed hardware. Building an all-purpose AI chip is even more challenging.
When it comes to AI chips, Intel, once the world’s top chip manufacturer, has struggled to compete with Nvidia and AMD. Intel’s Gaudi AI chip, despite its promising specs, has not matched Nvidia’s H series.
Moreover, Ola currently plans to remain fabless, but the company has yet to finalize the foundry for manufacturing the chip. In such a scenario, building AI chips by 2026 seems ambitious and pure hyperbole, again at least at this point in time.
Aggarwal and Ola have always chased new plans aggressively, and in the case of Ola Electric and Krutrim, that aggression is on full display. This is truly a case of easier said than done.
[Edited by Nikhil Subramaniam]
