What a pivot from earlier B2C model to B2B. I remember Bhavish said they are confident about B2C model as it has superior margins and they have cracked the model, etc.
It seems that he understood the complexities involved with B2C model, as Ola is struggling for several quarters to scale the logistics, supply chain, service infra. With B2B most of these will be taken care by the dealer. It will be in dealers interest too to maintain right level of inventories, spare parts, servicing staff, etc.
I believe the problems Ola is facing until now has more to do with their lack of service infrastructure than any product related issues. They have by far the best 2w EV portfolio in India and one of the lackluster service and showroom infrastructure.
Can this be new beginning for Ola?
I would say so, i would even call this as Ola 2.0. B2B model is not new to Indian market. Every other automotive company has been using this, there are lots of best practices, numerous industry leaders (personnel) out there that they can higher to quickly scale this up. Evs are in trend and a new normal, we all have understood this now. So, getting good dealership network shouldn’t be a problem. This way Ola can invest their time and energy on what they are good at than on scaling service infra or showrooms.
I even think at some point in future, lets not be surprised, if Ather gets merged into Hero. The scale of that merger will perhaps be too big for Ola to handle if they don’t transition to B2B model.
Waiting for tomorrow’s earning call for more insights.
Dis. invested and added more in the last weeks. Do your own research before investing.
New note on 07 Aug 2026 as forum doesn’t allow me to post more than 3times in a row:
Ola Electric — Q1 FY27 Earnings Call: Notes
Management tone: Notably submissive and measured. Bhavish appeared to be in mistake-acceptance mode acknowledging that his years-long insistence on scaling purely through the D2C model (essentially replicating Tesla’s playbook) was a misjudgment. He underestimated two things: India isn’t the US, and he isn’t Elon. I admire the ambition, but I don’t think he ever imagined service issues could become this painful. Western countries have far better public infrastructure and correspondingly fewer service headaches; in India, I’ve broken the front rim on my KT* twice to potholes (It was early units, seems the quality has since improved).
Root cause: The original sin traces back to directly porting the Etergo design for the Indian market a mistake that still haunts Ola today. Most product-level issues have since been resolved, but the service legacy from Gen1 and Gen2 persists, since those units were sold across nearly all of India while service infrastructure never scaled to match.
On the strategic pivot: I’m genuinely positive here. This feels like the right move, led by the right person former Hyundai India President BVR Subbu. Ola now has the product maturity to back it up: millions of kilometers logged across its fleet gives them real visibility into where the gaps are. Unlike Aether, which had the advantage of Hero MotoCorp’s parentage and a 12-year head start, Ola has had to earn this learning curve the hard way.
Cell business: Commentary was encouraging. For now, I’m comfortable with the direction of travel.
Bottom line: Priority right now is survival and operational maturity. Ramp-up can happen relatively quickly once the foundation is solid. The EV transition itself is no longer in question.
Disc: Invested, used Claude to improve the readability of my note.