Having read multiple biographies of founders (more so about Steve Jobs or Elon Musk and many more), have all succeeded not being nice to the team members. I feel these founders by nature differently wired and only way to get the team to deliver on their vision is being brash.
There is a long gap between being polite and being brash( I would use another word but its a polite forum). Look at what Tarun Mehta has delivered with Ather. You can be bold without becoming an intolerable boss. Shouting works to an extent but only when you are the subject matter expert. Gates and Musk put in the effort to be subject matter experts, and Jobs had legendary ideas on what makes products cool. Does Bhavish have any of it.
The original Ola S1 is a licensed design based on a European manufacturer of electric bikes. There is nothing original here. If you look at it technically, they had battery problems because they lacked the technical know-how to understand that, due to India’s higher summer temperatures, batteries degraded faster and were therefore more prone to fire.
Also, neither Ola Technologies has turned profitable nor is Krutim doing anything groundbreaking. Krutim is just a wrapper.
So let’s not make comparisons with Jobs or Musk. In fact when Musk was building Tesla there was almost zero competition in EV from a Toyota, Ford, GM. Its just last 5 years that BYD and Xiaomi have taken hold.
There is a reason why Ola is not able to compete with the legacy players. Horribe build quality is one of them.
Disc: Started building a position in Ather.
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Bhavish is a brilliant guy with a vision, by all accounts. Not going to discuss Jobs, Musk or Gates here as it is not my point. Ola has more than 200 patents filed, maximum of any startup unicorn in the country. That shows the company encourages innovation. As for Ola Tech, I have not studied it. Krutrim may not be great as of now, but it is not a wrapper.
Let us talk competition now. Ola is competing and is likely to gain share over next few quarters. In manufacuring, bad build quality is how things start. Nothing can be perfect from the first day. Germany was known for bad products, then Japan, and then China(in ur lifetime itself). The iterations make products better and that is happening at Ola. There will still be issues, but I am confident those can be(and would likely be) resolved with time and effort.
Ather is a good company but has other issues. But that would perhaps be discussed another time.
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My humble advice to fellow investors here : Do not catch a falling knife; stock is pretty much in a free fall right now and will take some time to stabilise. Even if you trust the company and the promoter, sit on the sidelines unless post IPO selling pressure driven by poor performance subsides and the stock stabilises.
“Bad build quality is how things start” - Hope you are not high on something. Making this statement is a lame excuse for making bad products and then making fun of people by closing all tickets in the CRM system without resolving it.
Usually companies make an acceptable quality product and slowly improve upon this acceptable quality to evolve to a world class product. If you start with a bad build product, you would be remembered for the same throughout the life of company, it becomes really difficult to change such perception once built.
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Not really going to comment on rest as thats your individual opinion and all of us are entitled to it. But gaining market share that you have written is on what basis. They are consistently losing share.
| Rank | e-2W manufacturer | Units sold |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | TVS Motor Co | 24,560 |
| 2 | Bajaj Auto | 21,770 |
| 3 | Ola Electric | 18,499 |
| 4 | Ather Energy | 12,840 |
| 5 | Hero MotoCorp | 7,164 |
This is for may. At one time Ola had 30-35% market share and sales per month reaching above 30k. Here is the thing, big daddy of scooter Honda will be launching their EV by end of the year. I am confident it will not take time to reach the top.
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Ethics is more important in business than just being brilliant. The kind of stuff that has come out about in past about Bhavish and his company indicates he has very low or no ethical tendencies. You can fool a lot of people for some time but can’t fool all the people all the time. Without ethics a brilliant mind becomes corrupt and ola customers are feeling that every day.
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I won’t go personal here. We are just discussing, on my side completely unemotionally. The quality is acceptable, whether you accept it or not. The company has sold more than a million scooters. A few 1000 complaints are expected. I am sure these will reduce in future.
Now please check June numbers. They crossed 20k in June mainly on strength of last week numbers. I am speaking on that basis. Request to check Q1FY26 numbers and then form an opinion. Daily numbers are continuously rising. I wouldn’t be surprised if the company regains top 2 or even top position within next 2 quarters.
Thank you sir. I am actually hoping for lower prices. That makes risk even lower for me. I just started buying, not finished.
They are not even close to the number of vehicles that they were selling last year despite launching a new electric motorcycle Roadster X. How do you claim that the numbers are rising?
Honda has already launched the Activa e and it is dead on arrival due to their crazy expensive subscription plans which defeat the whole purpose of buying an EV. The only serious players in electric two wheeler business I feel are the top 5 that you have already mentioned. Even Suzuki e Access will be a massive failure. I like Hero MotoCorp in the sense that despite having low volumes they are still trying by bringing out new variants of Vida. The biggest advantage of Vida is the removable batteries which none other top players offer.
And it does matters how these complaints are (man)handled 
As I said, check numbers over last 10 days or so. Roadster is coming into play now. As the vehicles become more reliable(we are in Gen 3 are they are far more reliable than Gen 1), customer trust will improve.
Their target was 65000 for the quarter. That is likely completed as 60000 from all over India was done and 5000 should come from Telangana. So they are on the guidance for the quarter.
The purpose of value investing is to buy decent companies in bad times. But in bad times the consensus around even decent companies makes us doubt the decency of the firm in question. I see that is happening here. People seem to think that company will not survive even 5 years. I think they will and even with 20% share, they will make pretty good money as the size of pie increases. But I am betting on them having a bigger share in 5 years.
Things can still go wrong. However, for now they seem to be on the path to profitability.
Rest, to each his own.
While everyone is entitled to their own opinion, it’s important not to let bias: positive or negative, cloud judgment. Diversification remains key in any portfolio strategy. We’ve seen stories of companies making a remarkable turnaround from debt, as well as once-iconic corporations collapsing unexpectedly.
I won’t comment on how the company is managed, but I believe leadership at the top plays a crucial role, extraordinary leaders often create extraordinary outcomes.
And talking big big when P/L, Balance Sheet is worse. Let the business do the talking.
That said, let’s not rush to conclusions based on just 10–15 days of data. It’s more meaningful to observe performance over the next 1–2 quarters before forming a well-rounded view.
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