Co-Founder and CEO of Ola Cabs and Ola Electric Bhavish Aggarwal said that the company is developing new charging technology that would allow EVs to fully charge in just 5 minutes.
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Specialisation
The company has invested in StoreDot, an Israel-based battery technology company.
They specialize in extreme fast charging (XFC) technology which Ola Electric would be able to use due to its investment.
It also has the exclusive rights to manufacture batteries that are compatible with StoreDot’s XFC technology.
StoreDot is working on mass production of ‘5-Minute charge’ EV batteries and has already started work on ‘2-Minute charge’ technology which they expect to be commercialised in the next 10 years.
Future Is Fast Charging
Its batteries make use of a silicon-dominant anode instead of the usual graphite anodes which is a multifold improvement over lithium-ion batteries.
This helps reduce charging time from hours to a mere 5 minutes.
Ola Electric is also building an EV ecosystem.
Aggarwal said that the future of EVs lies in better, faster and high energy density batteries which can charge rapidly and deliver higher range.
Efforts Toward Building Ecosystem
It is ramping up investments in core cell and battery technologies along with its in-house capabilities and global talent hiring.
It is also looking to partner with global companies “doing cutting edge work in this field”.
Its partnership with StoreDot is of strategic importance and a first of many.
It will also set up a gigafactory for manufacturing cells in the country to meet the demand generated by its Futurefactory- the world’s largest 2W factory.
Indigenous Battery Manufacturing, Future Plans
To that end, it has already submitted a bid under the Government’s PLI scheme for Advanced Chemistry Cell Battery Storage/
It presently buys the cells from foreign vendors and assembles them to make battery packs at the Futurefactory.
A battery pack is the costliest component of an EV.
It is also working on more EVs, particularly mass-market scooters which can compete with the likes of Ather 450X, TVS iQube and the new Bajaj Chetak.
An electric car may also be in the offing, given that they have already shared an image of a prototype.
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