Amsterdam-based electric scooter producing firm Etergo has been taken over by Ola Electric giving it the rights to the intellectual property, design and engineering capacities of Etergo. The company aims to launch its own chain of two-wheelers globally by next year, expected to be manufactured in India.
Bhavish Aggarwal, founder of Ola Electric said in a statement, “The future of mobility is electric, and the post-Covid-19 world presents an opportunity for us to accelerate the adoption of electric mobility globally. With electric, digitally connected capabilities, two-wheelers will further emerge as the most preferred urban mobility paradigm around the world.”
Etergo is renowned as the world’s first company to manufacture completely electric AppScooter, the first scooter to run Android apps with inbuilt GPS, access to 4G connectivity and electrically-controlled locks. Though the financial values of the latest deal remain disclosed, Etergo has managed to raise €21.3 million since its inception through German automakers and crowdfunding campaign.
With the use of high energy density batteries, an AppScooter can cover up to 240 kms. Ola has already started work in the field and is operating several trials to deploy EVs and charging solutions in Gurugram, Nagpur and Bangalore with a focus on two-wheelers and three-wheelers. The firm aims to create a valuable ecosystem for Electric Vehicles by developing battery swapping and charging stations in Delhi NCR with the help of Indian power distribution firms but the program has observed delay in execution multiple times.
It is estimated that the company has spent about Rs 50 crore in projects concerning with creating a charging infrastructure and get in over 200 Electric Vehicles. Ola though stated that anything with respect to EV will require intense amount of ecosystem development making their approach similar to that of Tesla in the USA.
Pawan Munjal, the chairman and MD of Hero MotoCorp had invested approximately $1 million in Ola Electric from his family trust previously this month. The company had raised about $250 million from Softbank last year bringing its valuation near $1 billion.