Ola’s claim of their EVs having a range of 500 kilometre range is too good to be true: Analysts

Ola Electric had recently announced its plans of getting into the electric car segment in India, and that it will launch its first model by 2024. It also set a target of selling 1 million electric cars by 2027.  

Bhavish Aggarwal, the founder and CEO of Ola has claimed that the range of its electric car will be more than 500 km, and it will accelerate from 0-100 km/hour in just four seconds.

Several automotive analysts, however, believe that the range of 500 km sounds too good to be true, especially if we consider the real-world range, which is often different from the range that has been calculated under ideal conditions in laboratory settings.

“It has taken years for legacy carmakers to get the battery technology just right,” said an analyst who works with all leading electric carmakers. “Launching your first electric car with a 500-km range sounds a bit too ambitious, unless, of course, the plan is to purchase long-range EV technology from abroad.” There are many a startup which have the tech but aren’t profitable, he added.

The range in an electric car is a function of the battery pack that is being used. A bigger battery pack will give you a longer range but it also increases the price of the car. “To reach 500 km and above range, a lot of other things need to be perfected, such as battery efficiency, getting the right lightweight material for the body shell without compromising safety, making the car less resistant to wind etc. and these things take time” the analyst added.

Possibly, that’s the reason even global cars being launched in India don’t have a range much above 500 km, even though some have battery packs twice the size of the Nexon EV Max.

Currently, the longest-range electric cars in India are the BMW i4 with a range of 590 km thanks to its 83.9 kWh battery, followed by the Kia EV6’s 528 km which comes courtesy of a 77.4 kWh battery.  

The only mass-market electric car to have a range close to 500 km is the MG ZS EV, which has a range of 461kms, comes with a 50.3 kWh, and costs about Rs 25 lakh ex-showroom.

“Even though battery prices are coming cooling down globally, it’s difficult to offer a 500 km range electric car and price it competitively,” said the analyst.

According to Statista, the costs of lithium-ion battery packs in dollars-per-kilowatt-hour have halved from 2016 ($293 per kWh) to 2020 ($137 per kWh), and are expected to touch $101 by 2023. However, prices of various commodities and semiconductors are rising, effectively balancing out any drop in battery prices.

In addition, the driving range claimed by carmakers isn’t valid in the real-world driving because it is often calculated differently, under ideal conditions.

With that being said, the driving range of electric cars has been increasing, as carmakers are perfecting how to make the electric car more efficient, using technologies such as energy regeneration, designing cars and elements with better drag coefficients, using lightweight materials etc.

Mahindra’s five electric SUVs that will be developed on the purpose-built INGLO platform will definitely have a longer range than its existing electric cars such as the eVerito. Cars developed on Tata Motors’ born-electric pure EV architecture (such as the AVINYA concept car showcased earlier this year which will be launched in 2025) will have a real-world driving range of more than 500 km on a single charge.