Ola to roll out portable dark stores for quick commerce, launches first electric motorcycle

Ola Electric and Ola Cabs founder Bhavish Aggarwal said the company is working towards building portable warehouses, which would act as dark stores to facilitate quick-commerce deliveries for the Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) ecosystem.

These portable warehouses are expected to drive down costs and make quick-commerce operations more efficient, Aggarwal said, as he announced Ola Electric’s entry into the electric motorcycles space with the launch of its Roadster portfolio at a starting price of ₹74,999, and rebranded Ola Cabs into Ola Consumer to better reflect the group's range of businesses.

The portable dark stores can be placed in any real estate with a steady electricity supply—they will use robotic equipment to assist in the assembly of the order and are expected to go live later this year, Aggarwal said on Thursday, speaking at a company event, Sankalp 2024, in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu.

Also read | Ola Electric Roadster, Roadster X and Roadster Pro e-bikes launched, starting at ₹74,999: Range, features and more

“It is a container, that you manufacture in a factory, put it in a truck which plugs into any kind of real estate,” he said. “It is completely robotic ...and is volume dense...,” he said, adding that these robotic dark stores will be able to offer 3 times the space of a regular dark store. “It will be 100% automated,” he said.

It would be available for companies and brands on the ONDC networks, as well as kirana or neighbourhood stores, which could use these set-ups as godowns or warehouses to expand stock-keeping unit (SKU) catalogue, he said at the event.

The company already has partnerships with several large FMCG and D2C brands including ITC, Marico and Bombay Shaving Company for efficient and automated warehousing operations, improving logistics to reduce manual wastage and high costs of storage.

“We are not directly going to compete with quick commerce firms, we are working with ONDC. The container can be used by anyone in the ONDC network. Even a kiranawala can use it. It's for all the network participants in ONDC,” Aggarwal said told reporters on the sidelines of the event, declining to project expected revenues.

This is a service he expects will disrupt quick commerce. Quick commerce, which heavily depends on dark stores and an integrated warehousing system, has proven to be expensive to run for several companies such as Zomato-backed Blinkit, Zepto, Swiggy Instamart as they continue to witness high burn.

Aggarwal also said that quick commerce in India is people-intensive and run inefficiently. This service would greatly reduce the number of people required at dark stores, he said.

“We have partnered with many brands. This service is live in Bangalore in terms of the warehousing-as-a solution,” he said.

He explained the rationale behind the rebranding, saying that cabs is just one of the services that the company will offer now, and its larger attempt is to make commerce more affordable and efficient. Ola Cabs will also reintroduce Ola Share, he added.

A high cost of middle men, steep logistics costs, poor and costly discovery, expensive credit and inefficient warehousing are some of the reasons for commerce lagging behind in India, he said.

Aggarwal detailed efforts to ramp up its partnership with ONDC, electrify the last-mile delivery, enable AI shopping co-pilot for discovery, and launch its own Ola credit platform to extend low-cost loans. With logistics occupying 15% of the total costs for businesses, he estimates that through these efforts, costs could go down by about 50%.

Ola Electric also entered the motorcycle segment with the introduction of its Roadster portfolio - Roadster X, Roadster, and Roadster Pro with prices starting at ₹74,999, ₹1,04,999, and ₹1,99,999, respectively. While bookings for all the variants began on Thursday, delivery begins from January 2025 for select models.

“Today, two-thirds of India’s 2W market consists of motorcycles, and with Ola’s entry into this segment, EV penetration is poised to further accelerate in the Indian 2W segment. We have already been successful in accelerating the EV adoption in the scooter segment, and with our futuristic portfolio of products, we are now focused on supercharging the EV penetration through our motorcycles. Coupled with the integration of our cells in our vehicles starting early next year, we are determined to chart a new course for mass EV adoption across India," Ola Electric's founder said.

Also read | Ola Electric’s Q1 revenue rises 29% to ₹1,644 crore as deliveries accelerate

At several instances, the company has also detailed plans to use its in-house Bharat 4680 cell into its vehicles starting Q1 FY26. Currently, the cell is under trial production at Ola’s Gigafactory. The Roadster models are expected to be delivered with the in-house Ola cells.

These developments come nearly a week after Ola Electric listed on the stock exchanges. On Wednesday, the company reported its first-quarter results, which saw its total revenue rise 29% year-over-year to ₹1,644 crore and losses widen to ₹416 crore from ₹267 crore.