The journey in the public market has been unrelenting for Ola Electric. It is trading below its IPO price. It is losing market share in the electric two-wheeler segment. It has missed key production targets for government subsidies.
And it isn't being let off the hook for a controversy that happened months back over its sales numbers.
In a public statement in February, the company had claimed to have sold 25,000 vehicles during the month, "cementing its market leadership in the EV 2W segment".
However, the claim could not hold ground for too long as the government's VAHAN data showed that only 8,390 Ola Electric scooters were registered during that month. It was later found that the company had included its then to be launched models in the sales figures.
As the issue came up in its analyst call on Thursday, founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said that the company thought it was “actually being transparent with everybody, but it looks like (we) added more questions”.
Aggarwal was asked about the cancellations from the 25,000 vehicles it claimed to have sold in February. “I thought this question will come up so I have some numbers I'll walk you through,” he said, giving a break up of the figure.
Aggarwal said that out of the 25,207 vehicles it claimed to have sold/received orders in February, about 3,000 were cancelled, close to 2,000 were yet to be delivered or in the process of delivery while rest (about 20,000 vehicles) have been registered.
Due to the discrepancies in the sales numbers, the company is facing scrutiny from the ministry of road transport and highways and the ministry of heavy industries.
During the analyst call, Aggarwal said the management was in touch with the regulators, acknowledging that there may be further queries from the government. However, he added, these regulatory aspects may not impact the business of the company.
Once the market leader in the electric two-wheeler segment, Ola Electric is now struggling on all fronts. The company, which does not spend on advertising according to Aggarwal, has been in news for all the wrong reasons. Shrinking market share, declining sales, layoffs, showroom raids, and widening losses, the last quarter has been a far from good for the Bengaluru-based company.
It reported a loss of Rs 870 crore in the fourth quarter of FY25, a two-fold increase compared to the same period last year. Moreover, revenue fell 61% year on year to Rs 611 crore from Rs 1,598 crore in Q4FY25.
The company said that it faced challenges like increased competition from other OEMs, slower pace of EV penetration and challenges in scaling up its D2C sales.
However, it is targeting profitability this financial year. Aggarwal expressed optimism that gross margins of the company would improve due to the newly launched Roadster bike and incentives under the PLI scheme for automobile and auto components manufacturing.
He linked the delay in rolling out the battery cells under the ACC PLI scheme to the company’s focus on establishing Roadster in the market. It now plans to achieve the 5 Gwh battery cell manufacturing capacity by early FY27.
Aggarwal said that the management was engaged with the government about the issue of missed targets for cell manufacturing and expressed hope that any penalties under the scheme might be kept to a minimum.
“Last quarter has also been a quarter of important learning and introspection for us that. We have transitioned from a private to a public company. We had to also manage operating risk in a slightly more mature way. So that lesson has been well learned by everybody at Ola Electric,” the IIT Bombay graduate said while brushing aside the past controversies.
