Ola Electric CEO Announces 'Free Upgrade' For Ola S1 Customers

Ola Electric has announced that customers who had booked the base Ola S1 electric scooter will have the option to change their booking to a model with the top-spec Ola S1 Pro hardware, but without the software updates. In fact, the latest announcement comes after the company sent out a communication to its S1 customers that production of the top-spec S1 Pro will take priority. The company says that production of the base S1 model will go ahead, but only in late 2022. According to Ola Electric, the vast majority of its orders are for the S1 Pro, and therefore the company is prioritising S1 Pro production instead of S1.

Also Read: Ather Energy's Tarun Mehta Takes A Dig At Ola Electric's 'True Range' Claim

We're upgrading all our S1 customers to S1 Pro hardware. You'll get all S1 features and can unlock Pro range, hyper mode, other features with a performance upgrade.

Thank you for being early supporters of Mission Electric!

Dispatch in Jan, Feb. Email to follow with details.

— Bhavish Aggarwal (@bhash) January 15, 2022

Also Read: Ola Electric To Open Final Payment Window On January 21, 2022 For Customers

The Ola S1 has a top speed of 90 kmph, with claimed range of 121 km on a single charge.

For customers who had booked the base S1 model, they can either upgrade to the S1 Pro or wait till the end of the year to take delivery of the scooter they had originally ordered. While Ola Electric CEO Bhavish Aggarwal has announced that S1 customers will be getting a free upgrade to S1 Pro hardware, this will mean that access to software upgrades of the S1 Pro and features like Hyper mode will be available only with an additional payment of Rs. 30,000. Naturally, the decision to push production of the S1, giving priority to the S1 Pro has not gone down well with customers.

Also Read: Ola Electric Says Vahaan Registration Not Updated Real Time

The top-spec Ola S1 Pro is available in a choice of 10 colours, and gets additional features like hill hold, cruise control and voice assistant

But Ola Electric says the free hardware upgrade will only benefit S1 customers. In response to a query from carandbike, a spokesperson for Ola Electric explained that the free hardware upgrade means access to a larger battery with better range. This way, customers will have a product ready to be upgraded at any time, by paying the differential of Rs. 30,000. According to Ola Electric, this has been done because there is an overwhelming demand for S1 Pro specs, even from S1 customers. But then these customers would have had to cancel their booking and re-order, which would end up pushing the delivery schedules much later in the queue.

According to Ola Electric, S1 customers can now avail of the harware of the S1 Pro, and can use the scooter as the S1, but with better range. And at any time, they can unlock the Pro features as per their convenience, by paying Rs. 30,000 which is the differential between the S1 and S1 Pro.