Ola joins hands with Mahindra and government to add electric vehicles to its fleet

Ola has already invested upward of INR 50 cr towards EVs and charging infrastructure, starting with 50-plus charging points across four strategic locations in the city of Nagpur

Home-grown taxi-haling company Ola and automobile maker Mahindra have partnered with the Government of India to build an electric mass mobility ecosystem in Nagpur in Maharashtra. Devendra Fadnavis, Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and Nitin Gadkari, Union Minister of Road Transport, Highways & Shipping, have inaugurated the multi-modal electric vehicle project at the Nagpur Airport Complex.

This project will bring Ola app to the vehicles across different segments, including e-buses, e-cabs, e-rickshaws and e-autos together on a single platform, which will enable citizens of Nagpur to book these vehicles for their transportation needs.

This pilot project will commence with a 200-strong fleet, including 100 of Mahindra’s new e2o Plus vehicles. The rest of the fleet will consist of vehicles sources from other OEMs including Tata Motors, Kinetic, BYD, TVS amongst others.

Fadnavis and Gadkari flagged off this all-electric fleet from the Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar International Airport. This was followed by the unveiling of Ola’s electric charging station, situated within the airport complex. This installation is the first of its kind and will power the fleet.

Ola has already invested upward of INR 50 cr towards EVs and charging infrastructure, starting with 50-plus charging points across four strategic locations in the city of Nagpur. With a clear focus to build a full-fledged ecosystem around sustainable mobility, Ola will also invest in training and educating driver partners on maintenance and use of in-car technology along with its key OEM partners like Mahindra.

Bhavish Aggarwal, Co-founder and CEO of Ola, said, “India has the need as well as the potential to set a global example on electric adoption to power its mobility needs. We are excited about how this could transform the mobility experience for millions of citizens, unlock immense opportunity for driver partners and positively impact the environment and quality of life in our cities. The government has been extremely supportive towards kick-starting this initiative and we look forward to working with them and the various industry partners in building the electric vehicle ecosystem grounds up for India. We believe that Electric Mobility in a multi-modal format, will be key towards realizing our mission of building mobility for a billion Indians.”

Founded in Jan 2011 by IIT Bombay alumni Aggarwal and Ankit Bhati, Ola (formerly Olacabs), is a popular mobile app for personal transportation. Ola integrates city transportation for customers and driver partners onto a mobile technology platform ensuring convenient, transparent and quick service fulfilment.

Using the Ola mobile app, users across 110-plus cities can book from over 600,000 vehicles across cabs, auto-rickshaws and taxis. Ola has also introduced a range of shared mobility services on its platform like Ola Shuttle and Ola Share for commute and ride-sharing respectively.