Ola Electric: Tesla of scooters
Early Stage: Bhavish Aggarwal founded Ola Electric in 2017 as a visionary entrepreneur determined to transform India's mobility ecosystem. He graduated from IIT Bombay in 2008 with a computer engineering degree. Back in 2017, Ola Cabs (run by Bhavish Aggarwal) was already one of India’s largest ride-hailing companies. But Bhavish saw a problem — India’s cities were getting more polluted, fuel prices were rising, and the future of transport clearly had to be electric. To explore the idea, Ola set up a small team and created a separate company called Ola Electric Mobility in 2017. At first, the goal was not to make scooters. They started with electric rickshaw and electric car experiments for Ola’s cab fleet in cities like Nagpur. The project tested how EVs could work in Indian conditions and what problems drivers faced — things like high vehicle cost, slow charging, and lack of charging stations. By 2018–2019, after getting funding from big investors like SoftBank and Ti...