Govt notice, poor service, tanking stock: Ola Electric skids off the road

New Delhi: From a show-cause notice from the government to consumers flooding social media platforms over myriad complaints regarding its e-scooters and service centres—while its share continues to slide—there appears no respite for Bhavish Aggarwal-run Ola Electric.

On Tuesday, Ola Electric’s share touched its lowest at Rs 86 apiece before recovering a bit—a massive 43-35 per cent drop from its all-time high of Rs 157.40 a few days earlier. The stock made its public debut at Rs 76 apiece.

In a stock exchange filing, the EV company admitted that it has received a show-cause notice from the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA).

“The Central Consumer Protection Authority has provided a timeline of 15 days to the company to respond to the show cause notice. The company will respond to the CCPA within the given timeframe with the supporting documents,” said the EV company.

According to the show-cause notice, Ola Electric “appears to be in violation of several provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019.”

It took serious note of the complaints by consumers related to manufacturing defects, partial or no refunds on booking cancellations, recurring defects despite servicing, overcharging, inaccurate invoices, and multiple issues with batteries and vehicle components.

The National Consumer Helpline, operated by the Department of Consumer Affairs, received 10,644 complaints since September last year related to Ola Electric.

Nidhi Khare, Secretary, Department of Consumer Affairs, said: “The CCPA is looking into a large number of complaints about Ola Electric, mainly related to service inefficiencies.”

“We hope the company addresses these concerns promptly and resolves the issues faced by consumers,” she mentioned.

Meanwhile, aggrieved customers continued to flood social media platforms, sharing their plight with hardware and software issues with its flagship electric two-wheeler.

“Even after the big announcement in service expansion, service centres are working the same. I delivered my scooter to Ola 3 weeks ago and received it last Saturday after completion of repair. Though it’s not properly fixed, OLA asked me to book RSA under my cost. I regret my decision to buy this scooter in 2022 even without a review. @bhash check yourself on this to understand what is going on,” posted an angry user on X.

Another commented: “Ola scooters, at their core, are poorly engineered products. People got carried away by the design aspect. The OLA updated 2.0 platform has taken away any repairability in the product and replacement is the only way for even minor issues. How is any of this GREEN?”

IANS