Please check while applying for the OLA IPO… Check whether you are applying for the OLA CABS Company IPO or the OLA Electric Company IPO.

Both are DIFFERENT companies… and both are as different as chalk & cheese.

1. Competition: Ola Cab Company has stiff competition from Uber and other regional cab companies. Such competition leads to a downwards price war. There are bans and protests… conducted by other cabs and even Ola’s own cab owners intermittently. This shows that the these people who drive for the company themselves are not happy due to low profits earned by the drivers…. Unless the government steps in and has a FIXED price for all the Taxi Cab aggregators… This is a business that is not going to make much profit. That is exactly why the old taxies had FIXED FARE METERS... Uber came into the market and destroyed… a properly working industry which gainfully employed people who did not have much education. Today these drivers have become almost completely obsolete and struggle to make a living. Uber did not disrupt… it destroyed… an industry… because the govt refused to step in. The Govt should have launched its own app like it has done with ONDC App.

On the other hand Ola Electric scooter is the boss of electric scooters in India. It is almost…

like a monopoly. It has just one real competition – Ather.

TVS & Bajaj have stepped up their eScooter production but it will eat into their own petrol scooter sales.

The Petrol Scooter companies are fighting a loosing battle. It is a race that they cannot win because if they increase eScooter & eMotorcycle production their Petrol Scooter & Petrol Motorcycle sales will fall.

TVS & Bajaj are in a perfect “Kodak moment”… oops Kodak situation… Kodak invented the first digital camera but couldn’t leverage it because it was making good business by selling film rolls and did not want to kill that business.

Similarly TVS & Bajaj or the Petrol Scooter industry has its own “parts-replacement “industry and dealer-profitability based on spare parts sales and “periodic servicing”.

Ola is very clear that their Electric Scooter doesn’t need any periodic servicing and the replacement of parts are also very less when compared to petrol scooters.

Ola has completely captured the market in India. It has almost 30% market share within a few years. Its next 3 competitors together sold just 61K eScooter… 2 of these companies are supposedly 2Wheeler Giants and well established since multiple decades.

There is a good chance Ola together with other eScooter companies (including TVS & Bajaj who will eat into their own market share)… will decimate the Petrol Scooter companies. TVS & Bajaj has woken up but it is 5yrs too late… they were busy arguing with Nitin Gadkari that India doesn’t have INSFRASTRUCTURE for EVs… (then why are then making eScooters now?).

Although for Ola Electric Company the profits are low as of now and it is totally understandable as manufacturing vehicles is a capital intensive business and it will take some time to turn profitable. Ask Tata Motors.

2. Consumer Complaints: Ola Cab Company (and for that sake even Uber) has a very poor consumer complaint system. The Ola/Uber Taxi App has just 4 to 6 silly predetermined complaints so if the customer’s complaint doesn’t match with those then it is very difficult to make a complaint.

Even if you complained there is not much proof of what happened to your complaint nor is there a follow up or any human intervention or reporting involved. In effect the consumer complaint was kind of non existent.

Personally I have never managed to successfully make a complaint. One time an Ola driver at the end of the ride asked me my phone very politely… saying there seems to be some server error… completed my ride and gave himself 5 star thinking I did not see it. Another time an Ola driver did not pay Toll and sped away while the toll attendant threw a stone which thankfully did not hit the rear window of the cab and me.. but it did hit the trunk of the car.

Every single one of those times I tried making complaints… but inspite of my tech-awareness I was not able to make a proper complaint even after furiously fumbling through the shitty app.

Most times it gets frustrating after 15 minutes of trying… standing at the roadside trying to find the RIGHT CHOICE from the silly Ola complaints MENU to match my situation.

Ola cabs also seems to have a very high-tolerance for shady/lowly trained drivers or drivers with low ratings.

While I cannot remember having such bad/wierd experience with Uber drivers. I think the difference is Uber has better drivers – educated, trained & polite drivers. It seems Uber takes its Driver rating seriously.

In short Ola Cabs is the modern version of the Kali-Peeli Mumbai Taxi.

Ola tried to copy its Ola Cab Consumer Complaint system in Ola Electric… untill frustrated people started posting their rant on social media to such an extent that an Ola customer set fire to his own Ola Electric scooter because of his frustration with the dealers.

Now you don’t expect people to post on social media about a Taxi ride where the Driver made a fool of you for Rs 500- Rs 1,000. But when the price is 1.5Lakh and emotions are involved things gets posted on social media.

Slowly & steadily Ola seems to have improved its Ola Electric customer redressal system and it would improve even more.

To be fair… The Ola Electric Company faced a lot of complaints initially on multiple fronts because the company was manufacturing for the first time… and that too very rapidly… so such manufacturing, dealers & customer-redressal errors are bound to happen.

This is because the dealers are not from the company and are more like franchise partners who have their own budget, staffing & marketing issues.

The toughest phase of Ola Electric Company seems to be behind it… as far as 2 wheeler manufacturing is concerned. Meeting tough targets ahead seems more like a walk in the park for Ola.

Ola Electric also made a BIG change in the way how 2Wheelers are sold nationwide … how they are registered and… how they are direct-delivered at your doorstep… although at Batman-like time… mostly around midnight… without the cape.

Ola Electric Motorcycle: Ola is soon (this year itself) expected to launch an Electric Motorcycle which by itself is rare in India. Electric Motorcycle has tremendous advantage over Electric Scooters because due to its bigger wheel size and longer-travel shock-absorbers would make riding more comfortable especially on pothole-roads and on the muddy & rough roads in the interiors of India.

The bigger wheel of a motorcycle could also allow 20% longer range as a single revolution on a bigger 17-inch wheel will cover more distance than a single revolution with a smaller 12-inch wheel.

The bigger 17 inch wheel on the motorcycle will also create more regenerative braking energy.

Ola Electric Car: Ola Electric is also expected to launch a very modern electric car by 2026… most probably it will be cheaper than NexonEV and have Tesla like ability.

Elon Musk too seems to have taken this Ola Electric Car seriously… because he too has FINALLY decided to make low cost eCars… something he was dead against. He seems to have negotiated some kind of concession which helped imported JLR electric cars too to be sold in India. Elon Musk seems to finally confirm Tesla sales in India but it will not create even a dent in Tata Motor’s EV sales. Actually there is a good chance that eJaguar might sell better than Tesla Cars in India.

Based on the pace of Ola’s manufacturing ability… Ola Electric Car by 2026 seems very much a possibility.

OLA Cab – something that other car manufacturers do not have: Ola unlike other car makers will be able to use Ola Manufactured cars for Ola Cabs. There is a good chance that it will not need to sell a single car for the first 1-2 yrs to the public as Ola Cabs can keep replacing its Diesel/CNG fleet. Eventually its entire fleet could be moved to Ola Electric-Car Cabs thus giving it a tremendous advantage. This move could turn its Ola Cab division profitable once again. Once this Electrification of its entire Ola Fleet is achieved Uber will have to quit India or Uber will be taken over by Ola.

In either case (whether it sells its electric cars to Ola Cab Company or to the public) it could be Ola Electric Company which will be making the biggest profit.

The Car Companies who might feel the heat from Ola are Maruti & Tata Motors. Both are monolithic companies. Maruti has almost no innovation in EVs while Tata Motors pretends to make them at a very slow rate. Just like Tata Motors has more preference for its Petrol/Diesel vehicles than Electric Vehicles. Tata Motors will be caught in a Kodak like moment once Ola Electric Car launches in India.

What will happen to TVS & Bajaj will happen to Maruti & Tata Motors… exactly… same to same… so watch this race closely.

Ola Li-Ion Battery Plant – Ola GigaFactory: This is Ola Electric Company’s biggest ace. Ola will be manufacturing Lithium-Ion batteries in India. It could be the first genuine Li-Ion manufacturer in India. The plant is already started to take shape and manufacturing could start before the end of 2025.

SUMMARY:

So in the end make sure you apply for the right IPO and not get confused by similar sounding IPO.

Ola Electric is the future of Transportation not only in India… but also it could travel to the a) GCC-7 Gulf Countries (mostly for Talabat which is like Swiggy food delivery), and for general public in b) south east Asian countries (especially Vietnam & Philippines both of which are 2wheeler dominant countries, (as of now we can forget Maldives, Indonesia & Malaysia) . There there could be huge demand from almost 3) EVERY SINGLE African country. All this could take about 5-10yrs to play out or around 2030.

There is also a possibility that the demand in India could be so hugh that Ola might not be able to export much… just like our milk production. India is the highest producer of milk in the world yet it exports very little of it… as the demand for milk is very high in India itself… this is also true of almost ALL of our agriculture produce… like Rice, Wheat, Sugarcane, Cotton, Tea, Banana, etc

Although in the end (Ola Cab & Ola Electric) both might workout to be good… Ola Electric already has a head start on its peers.

This is not a recommendation and its always best to consult your financial advisor before you invest in any Equity. Stock markets are bound to rise and fall and stock prices fluctuate based on any or many random things like News, petrol prices, arrival of monsoon in India, increases or decreases in various taxes or war in other countries, rise or fall in foreign exchange rates, any detrimental rumors etc.

If you are going to invest in equity it is always good to hold for long term (5yrs to 10 yrs). You can also sell if you are sitting on a handsome profit. Some investors never sell… preferring to enjoy Bonus, Dividends & Stock Splits as these are the real secret wealth multipliers… along with the increase in stock price.