Ola electric scooters are one of the most-awaited electric scooters in India and the company has taken an unusual step by upgrading the hardware of all Ola S1 scooters to Ola S1 Pro.
However, the customers won’t be able to use the full potential of the upgraded hardware as the upgraded features will be locked. In order to use the upgraded features, customers must pay an additional Rs 30,000.
After paying the amount, the customers will get an over-the-air update to unlock the S1 Pro features such as higher range, higher top-speed, higher charging rate, cruise control, hill-hold assist, Hyper mode and a few more.
Though this may seem fair, at the end of the day customers who don’t want the upgrade will end up having a slightly heavier scooter, this means the Ola S1 with upgraded hardware may not perform as well as the Ola S1 with the standard hardware.
Thanks to the added weight, the Ola S1 with upgraded hardware may have a slightly reduced range and performance. However, it is still unknown whether Ola Electric has compensated for this weight disadvantage with a different tune for the Ola S1 scooter with upgraded hardware.
Recently, Ola Electric started deliveries of its Ola S1 and Ola S1 Pro electric scooters and soon enough there were few complaints regarding the quality of electric scooters delivered as few customers received Ola electric scooters with scratches and dents.
Apart from that, the company has now announced that the Ola S1 and S1 Pro electric scooters will soon be available for its customers in cities like Mumbai, Pune, Ahmedabad and Vishakapatnam.
Ola Electric received an overwhelming response with 1 lakh+ pre-bookings within the first 24 hours of opening its pre-booking portal. The customers who pre-booked the Ola electric scooter were able to book the Ola electric scooter by paying Rs 20,000.
To make the full payment, Ola Electric also provides financial assistance through its Ola Financial Services (OFS), and according to the company, its customers can avail the ‘best-in-class’ finance options from its Ola Financial Services.
As per the schemes from Ola Financial Services, the lowest EMI scheme starts from Rs 2,999 for the Ola S1 and Rs 3,199 for the Ola S1 Pro variant.
Speaking about Ola electric scooters, the Ola S1 can cover 121 kms on a single charge, whereas the Ola S1 pro can manage 181 kms. However, according to the company, the ‘True Range’ of Ola S1 Pro is around 135 kms only.
Under the skin, the Ola S1 uses a 2.98kWh battery pack, whereas the Ola S1 Pro comes with a larger 3.97kWh battery pack. However, both scooters use near-identical electric motors.
Thanks to a different software on the Ola S1 Pro, it gets a few more additional features and performance as well. This means the Ola S1 Pro is slightly faster with an official 0-40 kmph time of seconds and a top speed of 115 kmph. Whereas the same feat in Ola S1 takes 3.6 seconds to 40 kmph and could manage a slightly lower top speed of 90 kmph.
One of the interesting features of the Ola electric scooter is the large 50-litre under-seat storage, which is almost twice as large as most scooters available in India.
Thoughts About Ola S1’s Upgraded Hardware
Yes, the Ola S1 gets the upgraded hardware of the Ola S1 Pro, but at Rs 30,000, the update is rather too costly for an OTA update.