Ola Electric to hire 2,000 people; launch electric two-wheeler soon

Ola Electric Mobility (Ola Electric), the ride-hailing firm’s electric vehicle arm, is planning to hire about 2,000 people, including 1,000 engineers globally, Ola co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Bhavish Aggarwal said in a note to the employees. The Bengaluru-based firm said it was making progress despite the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.

“The automotive industry has also evolved significantly over the last few months and the message is very clear - the future belongs to electric and connected mobility,” said Aggarwal in the letter.  “I’m very excited about the work we are doing at Ola to build this future of mobility,” he said.

SoftBank-backed Ola said it has made significant advances in the last few months. In May, Ola Electric acquired Etergo BV, an Amsterdam-based electric scooter original equipment manufacturer, for an undisclosed amount. Aggarwal said the talented team at Etergo joined the firm in May, and everyone was working hard to launch Ola Electric’s first product, the electric 2W (two-wheeler) very soon. 

“Looking forward, our aim is to build electric vehicle products and the required BaaS (battery-as-a service) systems for a global market and across all product segments. We will soon be launching many new programs towards this,” said Aggarwal.

To achieve this, it will be launching a large hiring initiative to recruit over 1,000 engineers globally over the next quarter and another 1,000 people across other functions. “We want to get the best talent to come and join us across all teams, and everyone can help identify, refer and hire. An employee referral programme will be started soon and HR will share more on that,” said Aggarwal.

In May, Ola had announced laying off 1,400 employees, or over 33 per cent of its workforce, as Covid-19 continued to pound the transportation industry. 

Aggarwal told employees that there was also a need to reorganise to be more productive and effective. This includes changing working methods towards a more methodical programme based approach with strong systems to deliver quality, cost, and timely results. 

“Today we will be starting an organisational restructuring and HR will be sharing more and working with you to execute this over the next 2 weeks,” said Aggarwal.

This will involve changes in the company’s organisational structure to make it more streamlined with clear KRAs (key responsibility areas), KPIs (key performance indicators) and reporting lines. It would also integrate Etergo colleagues into a single global engineering organisation, and enable more systematic and structured cross-functional work across the lifecycle of product development.

“I am personally very excited to be working in-depth with each and every one of you in what I think is a once in a lifetime opportunity for us to redefine the future of mobility,” said Aggarwal. “I look forward to the exciting journey that lies ahead of us,” he said.

The India electric vehicle ecosystem market is expected to reach $216.3 billion by 2030, according to a report by BIS Research.