An agreement to manufacture advanced cells in India was signed between Ola Electric, a leading electric vehicle company, and the Indian government's Production Linked Incentive (PLI) program. In 2023, the company plans to start mass production.

Under the first phase of the ambitious Rs 80,000 crore PLI project of the Indian government, four companies - Rajesh Exports, Hyundai Motors Global, Ola Electric Mobility, and Reliance New Energy - have been shortlisted. It received the maximum capacity of 20 GWh for its March offer and is now the only Indian EV firm to be selected under the program.

According to the business, this was delivered to Minister for Heavy Industries Mahendra Nath Pandey.

As the most important and expensive part of an EV, battery cell manufacture in the country is supported by the government.

All EV manufacturers currently import cells from China, South Korea, and other nations.

Manufacturers like Ola Electric can benefit from the Rs 18,000 crore in production-linked incentives that the government has set up for the industry.

The proposed Ola Battery Innovation Center (BIC), which is scheduled to go live in August, will house cutting-edge labs and high-tech machinery for battery innovation in order to create localized and futuristic cell technology. The company will hire 500 PhDs and engineers and is also actively seeking top cell R&D expertise worldwide.

It is noteworthy that the company also collaborates with and invests in Israel's StoreDot, which is developing batteries with extreme fast-charging (XFC) technology. According to the business, a battery may be fully charged in five minutes from empty to full.

“Today, 90 percent of global capacity for cell manufacturing is in China, and to reverse this import dependency, locally manufactured cell technology is key," states Bhavish Aggarwal, co-founder and CEO, Ola.

He claimed that the PLI program will be crucial to localizing the most important elements of the EV value chain and achieving India's self-sufficiency.

On July 18, Ola Electric announced that it would invest $500 million in a Bengaluru battery cell research and development center. The plant would open in August and hire around 500 engineers and PhD holders.

The company claimed to have created the first lithium-ion battery cell made entirely in India.

“At Ola, our roadmap to develop cell technology and manufacturing is vigorously progressing; making us a stronger vertically integrated mobility company across - products, mobility services and tech,” Aggarwal adds.