Ola Electric plans to move to ferrite magnet motor amid rare earth crisis; rolls out sports scooter line

Bhavish Aggarwal, Founder and CEO of Ola Electric, has stressed the importance of indigenisation of technology, amid the ongoing rare earth magnet crisis and tariff wars.

Ola Electric has been developing an in-house ferrite magnet run motor to eliminate its reliance on China and other countries for imports. Ferrite belongs to a family of magnetic ceramic materials containing iron oxide.

“The ferrite motor products come out next quarter, and then, over two to three quarters, all our products will become ferrite motor. So there will be a changeover period because we have a broad product line,” Aggarwal told the press on the sidelines of Ola Electric’s annual event, Sankalp.

At Sankalp 2025, Ola Electric launched a sports scooter lineup S1 Pro Sport, which will be delivered from January next year. Besides this, it released the latest version of its operating system—AI-powered MoveOS 6—with 25+ features.

The company also announced its modular Gen 4 platform, which will support its in-house manufactured Bharat cell variants and power the company’s next generation of vehicles, across two-wheelers, three-wheelers, and four-wheelers.

The EV maker said it will roll out two new variants of the Bharat cell—46100 and 46120. Meanwhile, it plans to integrate its maiden Bharat 4680 cells, touted to be India’s first indigenously developed lithium-ion

cell, in its vehicles, with deliveries slated from September 22, during the Navratri festive season.

In a presentation during the event, Aggarwal pointed out that the company is the only EV-maker in India to have sold 9,90,000 vehicles.

Ola Electric also announced discounted prices on its S1 Pro+ scooter and Roadster X+ 9.1 kWh battery variant incorporated with the 4680 Bharat cell, ahead of the festive season, in an attempt to sell 1 million vehicles.

Going forward, all new variants of Ola Electric scooters will be based on the Gen 4 platform. The company is currently using the Gen 3 platform.

The new platform will be enabled with MoveOS 6 operating system and powered with ferrite magnet motors. The AI-powered platform will support future variants of the Bharat cell.

According to the company, the platform will deliver a 76% increase in peak power, 25% reduction in weight, 15% increase in energy efficiency, and 41% reduction in cost. The roll-out of this platform is expected in the latter part of next year.

Ola Electric also unveiled the advanced prototype of its much-awaited Diamondhead bike, part of the company’s Moonshot Project. However, the bike’s rollout is expected only in 2027.

“We still have a lot of engineering work to do over the next two years. We have to invent many technologies. We have to build our own chip for this (Diamondhead), which Krutrim (the company's AI arm) will build. 

"We have to build a cell which will be much more powerful, which the gigafactory will build. We have to build some technologies like the hub-centred steering, which we have already built. So a lot of technologies will have to be built and invented to make the diamond head possible,” Aggarwal said.

Ola Electric, which once commanded the largest market share for electric two-wheelers in India, has been struggling to see an uptick in demand this year.

According to data from national vehicle registry Vahan, Ola Electric has managed to sell only 1,31,785 units as of August 1, compared to 2,70,347 units in the year-ago period. The company had earlier set itself an ambitious target of 3.25 lakh to 3.75 lakh units this fiscal year.

When asked about how the company was planning to achieve this target, Aggarwal said, “We have been in a transition over the last two quarters. We have transitioned our strategy from penetration to profitable growth. We have also transitioned our product portfolio from Gen 2 to Gen 3, and then bringing that in the bikes. So there has been a lot of transition going on. Now the transitions are all done. We are now pushing for scale, putting our products into more stores of ours."

The company is now gearing up for the upcoming festive season. “We do believe with the scooter portfolio growing, new products that we announced today, the 4680 as well as the Pro Sport, and then the bikes also, the new product Roadster X+, and the bikes also now scaling up into more stores, that target seems reasonable," said Aggarwal.