Ola Electric to Invest $100M in Initial Phase of Gigafactory, Announces Bhavish Aggarwal

Ola Electric, which is preparing for an IPO, is set to invest $100 million (approximately ₹834 crore) in the initial stage of constructing its Gigafactory to manufacture lithium-ion battery cells, as stated by founder Bhavish Aggarwal on Saturday. He mentioned that Ola's electric scooters will have battery cells produced locally starting next year.

The funding will go toward the first phase of the Gigafactory to establish a capacity of 1.5 GWh for cell manufacturing. Aggarwal stated that the goal is to increase capacity to 5 GWh in 'phase 1B'. He mentioned that Ola Electric was recently granted certification for the battery cells by the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS).

Aggarwal stated that Ola Electric is working on a more advanced and energy-dense 4680 battery cell compared to the 2170 cells currently used in their electric scooters.

Aggarwal stated that approximately 35-40% of the cost of two-wheeler EVs is attributed to the battery, and there will be a significant margin benefit as they begin producing their own cells.

Last August, Ola Electric raised $240 million from State Bank of India for building the Gigafactory as part of a $384 million financing round that saw participation from Singapore's sovereign fund Temasek.

In its draft prospectus with Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), Ola said it intends to use ₹1,226.

In August of last year, Ola Electric secured $240 million from State Bank of India to construct the Gigafactory in a $384 million funding round which also included investment from Temasek, Singapore's sovereign fund.

Ola's draft prospectus filed with Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) states that it plans to utilize ₹1,226 crore ($147 million) raised from its initial public offering to increase Gigafactory's capacity from 5 GWh to 6.4 GWh by FY25 and FY26. The company will apply its practice of exclusively employing female workers on the production floor at its scooter assembly factory, known as the Future Factory, to its new battery cell factory as well. Our experience with the all-female team has been excellent and we plan to maintain that policy. Aggarwal stated that our policies are not like Foxconn's and he prefers not to discuss policies of other companies.