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Ola Electric, a subsidiary of ride-hailing giant Ola, has announced that it will be investing a sum of $500 million in setting up a battery innovation and indigenous cell R&D centre in Bengaluru, India.
The company plans to set up a state-of-the-art Battery Innovation Centre (BIC) which will be one of the largest and most advanced centres with over 165 unique lab equipment to cover all aspects of cell research and development. They plan to recruit over 500 PhDs and engineers who will be supported by 1,000 researchers in India and other global centres.
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"Electric mobility is a high growth sector which is R&D intensive. Ola's Battery Innovation Center in Bangalore will be the cornerstone for core cell tech development and battery innovation out of India for the world. BIC will house advanced labs and high-tech equipment for battery innovation and will power India's journey towards becoming a global EV hub," said Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder and CEO, of Ola Electric.
Ola Electric was recently allotted 20 GWh capacity under the Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) PLI scheme by the Indian government for developing advanced cells in the country. Currently, Ola Electric sources cells from LG Chem of South Korea. Producing cells in-house would significantly reduce the cost of EVs. It recently unveiled its first lithium-ion battery, NMC 2170, whose mass production will begin from its Gigafactory by 2023.
China is currently the global leader in Lithium-ion battery production. It also boasts leadership in several other parts of the EV supply chain, but India is steadily gaining ground. India is promoting research into alternatives to lithium-ion batteries, like aluminium-air batteries while introducing PLIs to boost domestic production.
In early June, the founder disclosed that the company was close to filing its documents with SEBI to list, but chose to delay it. He said that they were in no hurry to list but were ready to since they were profitable and their investors were in favour of listing.
Its IPO could hit later this year or early next year.
Article by Aman Agarwal.
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