Bhavish Aggarwal, the cofounder of the electric scooter maker, said the delay was due to the time taken to “accommodate” the new variants it announced on Thursday, and changes to the original battery size of S1 Air.
Deliveries of the S1 Air, priced at Rs 84,999, were supposed to begin in March.
Aggarwal announced new variants within S1 Air and S1 scooters with battery sizes ranging from 2kwh, 3 kwh, and 4kwh.
“We had to push out deliveries by three months to accommodate the new choices we have brought to you today,” he said.
The size of the battery affects the size and range of the vehicle. The bigger the battery, the higher the price and range. In October, Ola said the S1 Air would have a battery size of 2.5 kwh.
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Aggarwal said all customers who had booked the S1 Air before Thursday would get a free upgrade to the 3 kwh battery size variant.Ola Electric also put out a teaser of the upcoming electric motorbike, which is set to be launched earlier this year.
EV companies are struggling to make changes to its battery packs to adhere to the new AIS-156 safety regulations stipulated by the government.
While the first phase of the new regulation kicked in from December, the second and more stringent phase is supposed to be implemented from March 31.
Ola Electric has seen sales jump in the last quarter of 2022 and in January. This came after a slump in sales in the middle of 2022 after a fire incident involving one of its scooters in March.
The company has been topping the sales charts, surpassing Hero Electric and Okinawa to become the top electric two-wheeler maker.
The development also comes at a time when the company has come under scrutiny for allegedly misusing the government’s FAME-II subsidy scheme.
ET reported on February 9 that the government was looking into allegations that four key electric two-wheeler manufacturers were artificially pegging lower the prices of their products to claim subsidies.
Ola, Ather, TVS Motor and Vida are under the scanner for allegedly mispricing their electric two-wheelers to make them eligible for subsidy under the scheme, senior government officials said.
The EV makers may have falsely claimed at least Rs 300 crore in subsidies, they have said.