Ola’s electric mobility arm, Ola Electric, will invest $500 million to set up a facility for making cells and battery packs for electric vehicles in Bengaluru.
“Electric mobility is a high growth sector which is R&D intensive. Ola’s Battery Innovation Center in Bangalore will be the cornerstone for core cell tech development and battery innovation out of India for the world,” Bhavish Aggarwal, founder and chief executive officer of Ola, said in a statement issued on Monday.
The battery innovation center will have a facility for developing complete battery pack designs, fabrication and testing under one roof along with high-tech equipment for research and development, the release said.
The company plans to employ a team of 500 PhDs and engineers, which will be supported by 1,000 researchers in India and other global centers, to develop in-house technology for battery cells.
According to a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, India largely depends on imports for the lithium-ion cells that go into the battery packs of electric vehicles.
The company aims to become a major player in India’s electric two-wheeler and four-wheeler market. On Saturday, Aggarwal had said that the company will make the “sportiest car ever built in India”. The company already sells S1 and S1 Pro in the electric two-wheeler segment and plans to launch more models in the future.
Ola recently unveiled its indigenously developed lithium-ion cell, which it hopes to mass produce at its gigafactory in Tamil Nadu from 2023.
Ola Electric was also selected by the central government for getting incentives under the Rs 18,100-crore production-linked incentive scheme, brought in to encourage domestic manufacturing of advanced cells.
