Ola Electric delays deliveries of S1, S1 Pro e-scooters amid chip crisis: Report

Ola Electric has reportedly postponed the deliveries of its S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters by two weeks to a month due to the ongoing global shortage of semiconductor chips,stated Mint, referring to media reports. The EV maker was earlier planning to begin customer deliveries later this month but the timeline has now been pushed to mid or late December.

The first batch of deliveries that were earlier expected to take place between October 25 to November 25 will now likely take place between December 15 and December 30.

The company reportedly sent out a mail to the customers who have booked a unit of the e-scooter, stating that the delay in deliveries is unavoidable. It apologised to the customers in the mail and assured that production is being ramped up to deliver scooters to customers at the earliest.

Ola Electric opened the final payment window for the S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters on November 10, confident of delivering the vehicles to customers on time. On the same date, the company had also commenced test rides for customers in Bengaluru, Delhi, Ahmedabad, and Kolkata. The company then begun test rides in five more cities - Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kochi and Pune - on November 19.

The company is now taking the test rides programme for its S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters across the country, with an aim to cover 1,000 cities and towns by mid-December. It is calling it the largest EV test drive program in the country. The company has claimed that the response to the test ride events has been quite positive.

The next batch of cities where Ola Electric will commence test rides include Surat, Thiruvananthapura, Kozhikode, Visakhapatnam, Vijayawada, Coimbatore, Vadodara, Bhubaneswar, Tiruppur, Jaipur and Nagpur, starting November 27.

While the S1 variant of Ola electric scooter is priced at ₹1 lakh, the S1 Pro variant is priced at ₹1.30 lakh (ex showroom, before state subsidies).