By Ron Chen, Correspondent ASEAN Region

Following the news that ride-hailing company Ola plans to set up 100,000 high-speed charging points across 400 cities in India under ‘Ola Hypercharger Network’ for its upcoming electric two-wheelers, Senior Automotive Consulting Analyst at GlobalData, Bakar Sadik Agwan offers her view: “Ola’s plan to establish its own strong network of charging stations will be a use case for robust two-wheeler electric ecosystem once implemented successfully. Presently, with the availability of a wide range of EV products, particularly in two-wheeler segment, factors such as range-anxiety, unavailability of charging stations and long charging time are few factors restraining the market growth. The move will further boost customer confidence in the electric vehicles (EVs).

“Ola plans to install over 5,000 charging points across 100 cities in FY2022. Dedicated only for Ola scooters, Hypercharger will be capable of charging a scooter to 50 per cent in 18 minutes, ensuring a range of 75km.

“The electric two-wheeler market in India is presently 150,000 units strong. However, the market witnessed a decline of 6 per cent to 143,837 units in FY2021, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. With significant efforts from the manufacturers and other stakeholders to develop a robust EV ecosystem, the sales are expected to grow at a faster rate in near to mid-term. While there has been increased OEM partnerships to enhance charging infrastructure like the recent Hero MotoCorp and Taiwanese electric scooter maker Gogoro to develop battery-sharing infrastructure in India, significant government efforts through new policies and charger deployment are expected to boost EV volumes.”