Is one of India’s biggest EV makers losing its spark?
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.8 • 1.3K Ratings
🗓️ 18 March 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
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Summary
From the BBC World Service: Shares of Ola Electric hit a record low following allegations that the company has defaulted on payments. Meanwhile, China’s BYD says it’s unveiling ultra-fast EV chargers, and Audi is cutting 8% of its global workforce. Plus, Germany’s parliament is voting on whether to rewrite its debt rules. And later, a Peruvian farmer is taking a German energy giant to court.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | is one of India's biggest EV makers losing its spark. Live from the UK, this is the Marketplace |
| 0:07.5 | Morning Report from the BBC World Service. I'm Sarah Rogers in for Leanna Burn. Good morning. |
| 0:12.9 | Let's start in India where shares of EV maker Ola Electric hit a record low. It follows allegations |
| 0:19.1 | the company has defaulted on payments, shares recovered in |
| 0:22.5 | Tuesday's training, but are still down on the price of its public debut six months ago. The BBC's |
| 0:28.1 | Archanah Shukler joins us on Marketplace from Mumbai. Hello. Hello, Sarah. Okay, so just fill us |
| 0:33.8 | in on Aller Electric and give us some of the context there. Ola Electric is one of the first few startup success stories from India. |
| 0:40.5 | They started as a ride hailing service company but quickly expanded to making and selling electric vehicles. |
| 0:46.5 | In fact, for the first five years, they kind of dominated the sector. |
| 0:49.6 | They attracted big money from marque investors like Tiger Global and Japan's SoftBank. |
| 0:55.0 | Till a few months ago, they were the largest selling electric two-wheeler company in the |
| 0:58.9 | country and the first EV company to list in the stock markets amid much fanfare. |
| 1:04.7 | So as all the share prices dropped to a record low, what's gone so wrong for them? |
| 1:08.8 | They kind of reflects both. One, a waning investor |
| 1:12.0 | hype because this was part of the initial startup success story and we've seen a lot of these |
| 1:18.3 | startups actually losing out in the market now that they come to an established space. And secondly, |
| 1:25.3 | it is also an internal struggle from this unsustainable growth path that they |
| 1:30.0 | have been on. In fact, they listed last year and they've already lost 70% of the value from the |
| 1:36.2 | highs of the stock. Some of the troubles are really deep-rooted. They were the top seller once, |
| 1:41.6 | but they're facing tough competition in the market from the new entrance, also because they've been trying to sell these vehicles directly to consumers |
| 1:48.6 | bypassing the dealership. But more than that, there have been numerous consumer complaints |
| 1:52.9 | on quality and service of its vehicles. And the latest where the stock went to record |
... |
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