India's Ola to buy cars from Nissan to expand fleet

Indian ride-hailing company Ola on Tuesday said it would purchase vehicles from Japanese carmaker Nissan Motor Co’s local unit to expand its fleet, as it competes with U.S.-based rival Uber for a bigger share of the market. Ola expects to sign similar partnerships with other carmakers to achieve its target of adding 100,000 vehicles by end-2016 to its car leasing program, the company said in an emailed statement. The company, through its subsidiary Ola Fleet Technology Pvt Ltd, will lease cars to its driver partners against a deposit and monthly rental that would include the vehicle’s maintenance cost. After three years the driver has the option to own the car, it said in the statement. Ola, backed by Japan’s Softbank Group Corp, will purchase vehicles from Nissan and its affiliate Datsun, but it did not specify the number of cars to be bought. Nissan is struggling to grow its sales in India which fell 24 percent to less than 20,000 vehicles in the six months between April and September, during which time total passenger vehicles grew 6 percent to 1.3 million, industry data showed. Reuters