Ola Electric developing solid-state batteries, says chairman

02 Jul 2024 CW Team

Ola Electric, an Indian electric scooter manufacturer backed by SoftBank Group, is developing solid-state batteries and plans to power its vehicles with its own cells by next year, according to founder and chairman Bhavish Aggarwal.

Aggarwal mentioned that the company is in the early stages of experimenting with solid-state batteries. He anticipates that Ola's electric scooters, among the best-selling in India, will be powered by these cells when commercial production starts early next year at their cell 'gigafactory' in Southern Tamil Nadu.

The gigafactory, owned by a unit of Ola Electric, has been chosen for the government's battery manufacturing incentive scheme. Solid-state batteries are expected to provide improved safety, a longer lifespan, and faster charging compared to conventional lithium-ion batteries, which use flammable liquid electrolytes. However, mass adoption of solid-state batteries has been challenging due to constraints in raw material availability, complex manufacturing processes, and high costs.

Japan's Toyota Motor, the world's largest automaker, is a major advocate of solid-state batteries and plans to launch them globally in the next few years.

Currently, Ola does not produce its own cells and sources them from South Korea's LG Energy Solution and China's Contemporary Amperex Technology. Localising cell manufacturing is considered a crucial step in reducing the upfront costs of electric vehicles, as cell sourcing is one of the biggest expenses for most EV makers.

Ola has started manufacturing the more efficient 4680 form of battery cells, but only for testing purposes. These cells are known to be more efficient than the widely used 2170 cells, but many companies, including Tesla, have faced challenges in scaling up production.

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