India's largest shared-vehicle transportation platform Ola, in which Japanese internet and telecom company SoftBank Group is a major investor, could look at introducing a million electric cars in partnership with an electric vehicle (EV) manufacturer and the government, according to reports. For the country’s fledgling EV industry, which sold a total of 22,000 EVs in 2015-16, this could come as a massive boost to drive growth and transform the electric mobility scenario in the country.

Speaking at the Hindustan Times Leadership Summit in New Delhi yesterday, Masayoshi Son, chairman of SoftBank Group, said he is bullish on the EV sector in India and would explore investment opportunities. More importantly, the EVs will be locally manufactured in line with the government’s Make in India programme, he said. The Mint has quoted him as saying, “I think this will be the biggest initiative for electric vehicles in India,” adding that he wants to meet the one million target in the next five years. However, the report also states that he said it is still an idea and specifics are yet to be decided.

Masayoshi Son, who aims to meet the one million EVs in India target by FY 2020, also met Prime Minister Narendra Modi regarding the green initiative. The current challenges to the growth of the EV industry in the country are the hugely inadequate charging network and the high cost of manufacturing EVs. It is understood that along with EVs, the SoftBank Group chairman is also bullish on a charging network and solar energy.

Clearly, a big-ticket investment from Ola in the EV sector will give a new fillip to the industry and also make the government think a lot more seriously about offering more support to e-mobility. In this context, it is to be noted that earlier this year, Mahindra & Mahindra struck an alliance with Ola and it is likely that the cab aggregator could source the electric vehicles from Mahindra Electric, the EV arm of the Mahindra Group. 

As and when the plan to introduce a large number of EVs in Ola’s fleet fructifies, expect Mahindra Electric, the first EV manufacturer in India and the only one with manufacturing scale, to benefit substantially.