Ola Electric offers to replace front fork arm of its electric scooter free of costs

Ola Electric has offered to replace the front fork arm of two lakh of its S1 electric scooters free of costs, it said on March 14.

The automaker has made the offer in light of accidents involving Ola Electric scooters and large number of safety complaints on social media.

In a tweet, it clarified saying, "We assure you that this is unfounded. At Ola, all components of our scooters, including the front arm, are thoroughly tested under extreme conditions and are engineered with a factor of safety much higher than the typical loads encountered on vehicles," the Bengaluru-based company stated.

Sources have told CNBC-TV18 the issue mainly concerns scooters manufactured between October 2021 and December 2022. The company is not calling this a recall.

However, as part of continuous engineering and design improvement process, the company has recently upgraded the front fork design to enhance the durability and strength even further, Ola said.

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"To alleviate any concerns that you or any of our community members might have, we are giving an option to our customers to upgrade to the new front fork," the company said.

This upgrade will be free of cost and the appointment window will open starting March 22, it added. The company will reach out to customers with a detailed process for booking an appointment soon, the firm said.

While Ola has cited no specific reason, it may be noted that multiple incidents of two-wheeler EVs fire were reported last year, following which the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways had penalised EV makers.

While EV-makers Ola, Okinawa, Pure EV, and Boom EV recalled their electric two-wheelers, the probe also meant that India has changed its EV testing norms. New norms over battery cells, battery management system (BMS), onboard charger, battery pack design, and thermal propagation due to internal cell short-circuit came into effect on October 1.