First lot of two Ola Scooters delivered in Silchar: “Smooth like jet,” says Sagar, “Meets expectation,” Ashish

Electric scooters are becoming a trend in India. Fuelling this trend further across all age groups is the rising cost of petroleum coupled with innovations in the EV category. Ola eclectic has joined the bandwagon lately and has already emerged a brand that is sought after.

When it opened its booking, the firm announced in July that its electric scooter had received a record-breaking 100,000 reservations within the first 24 hours, making it the most pre-booked scooter in the world. The Ola S1 is priced at Rs 99,999; for the S1 Pro, customers will have to pay Rs 1,29,999.

Though Ola sold scooters worth Rs 1,100 crore in just two day, it encountered massive obstacles in the form of semiconductor chip shortages and omicron surge in the country. The delivery got delayed and promises remained unfulfilled. The customers’ wait got prolonged. Despite making full payment, the owners had to wait for days to get the delivery.

Two such owners are Sagar Dutta and Ashish Purkayastha of Silchar. The first lot of two scooters were delivered– to Dutta of Rongpur first and then to Purkayastha in Chandmari Road, Tarapur.

Sagar Dutta said, “It’s smooth like jet.” Talking more about his riding experience, he said, “My friends were riding on their bullets and yet they could not overtake me. Such is the smoothness of this E-bike.”

Purkayastha in his initial reaction said, “The scooter meets my expectations.” He added, “The riding experience is good. It needs some adjustments as in slopes controlling it is a little difficult. The moment you clutch the break the power disconnects and so the accelerator stops functioning. However, with more updates and more hours of riding, these adjustments would get fine-tuned.”

Sagar Dutta lauded the service that he has received so far. “The way the vehicle was delivered has left me impressed. They don’t have dealerships here in Silchar and so, it was load on a truck and sent to me. There was an issue with the sticker at the rear end of my vehicle. I have called the customer care and complained about the same. Tomorrow, a service van will reach from Guwahati and address my issue, such is the quality of Ola’s service,” added Dutta.

Purkayastha too alluded to the fact that the handling and delivery were appreciable. He stressed on a few issues too that the Ola Electric might need to address. “My insurance tenure for the vehicle started on March 1, but I got the delivery on March 18. Here I lost the premium for 18 days without availing the services. Another aspect is the utilisation of funds. I booked with Rs 500, confirmed my booking with another payment of Rs 20,000 in the month of November and made the full payment of Rs 1,45,000 in the month of February. While Ola utilised my funds resting with the organisation, I got no compensation or interest for investing my funds for a cumulative period of seven months,” Purkayastha pointed out.

Both Sagar Dutta and Ashish Purkayastha are riding their new scooters from the stable of Ola Electric. While both of them enjoy the ride, the trees will smile staring at them as they will pollute the world a little less for the trees to live a little longer.