EV maker Ola Electric's chief marketing officer Varun Dubey quits

Bengaluru-based electric vehicle company Ola Electric's chief marketing officer, Varun Dubey, has departed from the company, Live Mint reported. Dubey, also the company's key spokesperson, has moved on from the company citing personal reasons, the report added. Dubey was a prominent media face as well as a close associate of founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal throughout the launch of the Ola Electric scooter.

Dubey had joined the mobility startup in 2019 and prior to that, he worked with healthcare startup Practo for five years. He also worked with technology company Qualcomm.

Dubey's exit from Ola Electric follows other high-profile exits including the quitting of Ola Cars CEO Arun Sirdeshmukh and CTO Dinesh Radhakrishnan. It also comes at a time when the company is battling criticism related to the quality issues of its flagship two-wheeler, the Ola S1. On March 26, an Ola Electric scooter caught fire in Pune, triggering concerns related to EV batteries. This has led the company to recall over 1,441 vehicles for investigation, as a preventive measure.

It is also worth noting that over the past couple of months, Dubey's participation and visibility in handling the aftermath of the EV fire incident had been limited, the report noted. Ola Electric is also dealing with consumer complaints regarding software bugs in the scooter which caused it to reverse, when the command was to accelerate, fuelling concerns regarding proper on-road testing of the product. Dubey's visibility in engaging with the media in these matters had also been limited.

In a recent private company event, Aggarwal addressed the safety concerns related to EV fires, saying that there may be more EV fires in the future but such incidents are very rare, Reuters reported. “Will there be occurrences in the future, there might be. But our commitment is that we will make sure we analyse every issue and if there are fixes to be done we will fix them," he said.