This one’s confusing. The last time I wrote about Ola’s motorcycles, it was a comical rant about how the company blatantly ripped off Zero’s ad campaigns and how undercooked its then-released Roadster model looked.
Have things changed? Well, Ola’s CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal took to Twit ... umm ... X, as it's called now, to share two pictures of what looks like its Bumblebee-inspired Arrowhead sports bike. And I’m not sure what to think, as there’s just far too little information for now.
The bike does look heaps better than the poorly-revealed Roadster model. The caption on the X post read, "Going to ride this soon," suggesting that the unit in question may be ready for production. I reckon we're close to seeing additional pictures and videos of the Ola CEO riding this electric motorcycle in the upcoming weeks.
The pictures show the yellow-and-black motorcycle sporting alloy wheels (likely indicating there will be tubeless tires) and a tiny LED headlight on either side of daytime running lights. At the ends of those lights are the turn indicators.
The handlebar is a clip-on, while the instrument panel is a TFT screen featuring Bluetooth connectivity for music playback and navigation. It will be supported by Ola's Gen-3 platform, which also serves as the basis for subsequent Ola products. This architecture, according to Ola, is its most sophisticated to date.
As for features, the Arrowhead will likely come with MoveOS 5. It will have features and capabilities like Ola Maps-powered Road Trip Mode, Group Navigation, and Live Location Sharing. In addition, voice assistant, predictive insights, Smart Charging, Smart Park, and TPMS warnings will all be available.
That’s as much as we can decipher from the shared images.
"Arrowhead better not be the arrow that points to the service center every week," read a comment on Aggarwal’s post. This is clearly a jibe at the earlier problems of Ola’s scooters and their infamous unreliability.
In other news, Ola’s Q3 loss has widened year-on-year. Compared to 86,775 units in Q3 FY24 and 98,619 units in Q2 FY24, Ola Electric managed to sell only 84,029 units in the December quarter. The company apparently incurred about US$137,160 (INR 1.2 Crore) daily in servicing and warranty costs in the last quarter. Whoops.
I hope and pray Ola has done its homework before it goes on to reveal the bike officially to the masses. The value that Ola’s electric motos offer is not something most EV manufacturers could compete with.
Are you excited?