Ola to invest $100 million in design and R&D centre

As customers wait for the delivery of the S1 all-electric scooter, Ola is investing a big chunk of money in a design and research centre in Europe to develop more products.

On Thursday, Ola announced its FutureFoundry (Future Foundry), which will be the brand’s global centre for vehicle design and R&D. The new facility will be based in Coventry, UK, and Ola will invest over $100 million over five years. Ola says the facility will have over 200 engineers and designers who will work on the brand's upcoming two-wheel and four-wheel products.

'We want to create a world-class design and R&D team with global sensibilities. Ola Futurefoundry is an important step in building a multi-disciplinary team that is agile, flexible, and responsive to the various needs of our consumers around the world. We are setting up in Coventry a global epicentre of automotive and technology talent. Futurefoundry will supplement and collaborate with our core team in Bangalore, India, to deliver exciting new EVs across two-wheeler, four-wheeler, and other form factors,' said Wayne Burgess, Vice President of Vehicle Design, Ola Electric.

Recently, Ola released a picture of its upcoming all-electric hatchback. The electric four-wheeler is currently in the design stage, and Ola is yet to shed more light on its development program.

Ola recently paused the production of the S1 scooter. Currently, the brand is only producing the top-of-the-line S1 Pro all-electric scooter, which is said to have higher demand. Ola has given its customers who have opted for the S1 an option to upgrade to the S1 Pro, but for that, they will have to pay Rs 30,000 more over the price of S1. The other option for customers is to wait until the end of this year, which indeed seems very unfair to those who opted for the Ola S1.

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