Ola Electric postpones S1 electric scooter's sale to September 15

Ola Electric, which made a high pitched entry into India's electric scooter market with its maiden scooter offering, S1, on August 15, will now commence sale on eptember 15 at 8 AM. According to the original plan, it was to start the online sale from Wednesday, 6 PM.

However, the company later released a tweet acknowledging problems with the website and platform. The time for starting the sale was then pushed to 9 PM. Ola CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal then issued a statement late in the evening regarding the "technical glitches" facing the website.

“I want to apologise to all of you, who had to wait for several hours. The website was just not up to our expectations on quality. I know we disappointed you and I sincerely apologise to each of you for what was clearly a very frustrating experience,” he wrote in a statement.

Ola Electric has built “a completely digital purchase journey,” including a fully digital loan process without any paperwork. “We wanted to provide this first of its kind digital purchase journey and today we haven't been able to," he wrote.

Aggarwal confirmed that the reservations and the positions in the waiting line won't be changed. Buyers who reserved the scooter first will be able to purchase it first. The delivery schedule will not be impacted either.

The company will be notifying buyers via email and push notifications about the window to purchase the scooter. The buyers will either have the choice to pay the advance amount, which is Rs 20,000 in the case of Ola S1 and Rs 25,000 in the case of Ola S1 Pro, at the time of sale or else opt for the financing option provided by the company.

The price starts at Rs 99,999, which includes FAME II subsidies, but excludes state-level subsidies, and goes up to Rs 1,29,999 for the Pro model, Ola. The first deliveries are scheduled to begin sometime in October across 1,000 cities and towns in India.