Despite losses, Ola Electric shows promise with in-house battery tech, upbeat outlook; Shares jump

Ola Electric said that Project Lakshya, the EV maker’s cost optimisation initiative, helped it cut auto operating expenses to ₹105 crore a month, from the earlier ₹178 crore. This led to it posting a positive EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortisation) in June, it stated. However, a closer look at the results paints a different picture.

The electric two-wheeler maker posted ₹828 crore operations revenue in the first quarter of fiscal 2026—almost half of the ₹1,644 crore it posted in the same period a year ago. Overall, quarterly EBITDA was still in the red—a loss of ₹237 crore, widening from last year’s ₹205 crore, a chunk of it coming from the Cell segment.

Ola Electric has been in the news for the past couple of years for its warranty and service issues in its earlier models. In fact, last quarter, they provisioned ₹250 crore to factor in warranty for earlier Gen 1 and Gen 2 products.

“In general, our quality has been improving significantly with each generation, and claims in Gen 2 are 30 per cent lower than Gen 1, and in Gen 3 are already 60 per cent lower than Gen 2 at a similar ageing profile. In our estimate, Gen 3 has the lowest fault rates in the industry,” the company said in its investor presentation.

Ola Electric is positive about the future. For fiscal 2026, the EV company looks to move 3.25 lakh to 3.75 lakh vehicles and earn a revenue between ₹4,200 crore and ₹4,700 crore.

In the last quarter, Ola Electric sold more Gen 3 scooters than the rest of its inventory. In fact, Gen 3 scooters accounted for 80 per cent of all of its quarterly scooter sales.

Ola Electric also looks to bring its Roadster X electric motorcycles to more parts of the country—it is now available in 200 stores across India, the company said.

Ola Electric to move to in-house batteries

But the highlight of the announcement was the company—once alleged to have imported Chinese products in full to repackage them—moving towards successfully developing heavy rare earths (HRE) free motors.

Ola Electric said that these HRE-free motors would be deployed in the third quarter of this fiscal. Moreover, their in-house developed 4680 Bharat Cell would begin powering vehicles from this Navratri, the company added.

Following the announcement, Ola Electric shares soared close to 7 per cent to hit as high as ₹46.60 apiece on the NSE.

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