Ola Electric is market leader in Two Wheeler EV’s, correction, read that ‘was’ a leader in Two Wheeler EV market. No longer.
It has now ceded the crown and its market share has fallen down considerably. As per media reports, its share has fallen from 49% of the market to around 27% as Bajaj and TVS quickly gain ground.
The bigger reason for the fall has been reports which have highlighted that more than 80,000 vehicles come for service at its depots every month.
There are viral videos of customers waiting for months as Ola Electric struggles to repair these huge number of vehicles.
One customer got so frustrated that he set a full service center on fire at Bangalore.
Viral videos of the scooter failing several times during its warranty period are floating on the Internet.
Standup Comedian, Kunal Kamra highlighted this in one of his shows and made jokes about the company. These did not go down well with its CEO, who took to ‘X’ and took personal pot shots at Kunal Kamra, calling him a failed standup and offering him a job at Ola. This has triggered a war on social media. Kunal Kamra did not say anything that was not already in the public domain. The very fact that the CEO responded goes to show that Kunal Kamra’s word hurt him and they would only hurt if Kunal Kamra was a successful standup, otherwise no one would have noticed and no one would have responded.
Another angry customer doing a public demonstration.
Just a few days ago, Bhavish Aggarwal, the CEO of Ola had announced a massive price drop of Ola S1 Model. The model priced at 84,000/- was now available for 49,999/- under a BOSS (Big Ola Season Sale) offer. The price reduction was tweeted by the CEO himself and it drew some funny responses. Some wrote, do we buy it and bring it home or do we send it direct to the service center! Another wrote, nah, not buying even for 9,999/-.
This public spat between Kunal Kamra and Bhavish Aggarwal has triggered a wider debate on how CEO’s of companies should respond to public criticism.
The stock markets too have responded negatively to all this controversy and Ola Electric shares fell by almost 9% today (07.10.2024) eroding the market cap by almost 4000 Crores! A costly spat this is turning out to be!
There are complaints that Ola Electric has been a generous recipient of PLI scheme of Narendra Modi, which has ignored home brands like Ather Electric.
Another media report highlights why Ola Electric shares have fallen by 27% in recent times.
In his public spat with Kunal Kamra, the CEO called him a cheap influencer and asked him how much did he get paid to do this hatchet job on Ola?
It is often said that if you are good, everyone looks good to you and if you are crooked person, then the world looks crooked to you. Does this apply to Bhavish Aggarwal?
