OLA to set up EV Hub in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: Electric vehicle maker Ola Electric would set up an EV Hub in Tamil Nadu that would house advanced cell and EV manufacturing facilities, vendor and supplier parks among others, the company said on Saturday.

The EV Hub would become one of the largest ancillary ecosystems for electric vehicles at a single location, the company said.

Ola Electric earlier in the day inked a memorandum of understanding with the Tamil Nadu government in the presence of Chief Minister M K Stalin committing investments of Rs 7,614 crore that would see production of electric cars and lithium-ion cells at the facility. The investments would see creation of 3,111 jobs in the state.

The OLA EV Hub would be spread across about 2,000 acre of land to be located at the company's manufacturing facility in Tamil Nadu.

"Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi has envisioned the next 25 years as Amrit Kaal in India. I firmly believe that this is our decade and we have a great opportunity to build our future. We are on the right track to become a global hub for EVs," Ola CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said.

"Ola's EV Hub will bring the entire EV ecosystem under one roof making us a much stronger vertically integrated mobility company across 2-wheelers, 4-wheelers and cells," he said in a company statement.

Ola would begin the mass production of its cell from its upcoming EV Hub by 2023.

Last year, Ola unveiled the first Lithium ion cell NMC-2170 that was built in its state-of-the-art Battery Innovation Centre in Bengaluru that saw an investment of USD 500 million.

The Battery Innovation Centre is one of the world's largest and most advanced cell research and development facilities with more than 200 unique and cutting-edge lab equipment to cover all aspects of cell related research and development.

The world-class innovation centre is equipped to develop complete packages of battery pack design, fabrication and testing under one roof, the company said.