Ola Electric vs Ather Energy: When Strategies Collide

When Bhavish Aggarwal was pitching his idea for Ola Electric to prospective employees and investors in 2017, the Indian electric vehicle market looked very different. It was dominated by a handful of small brands such as Ampere, Okinawa and Sunra, most of which depended on batteries and motors imported from China. Aggarwal's vision was to radically change the EV sector by focusing on two key aspects -- scale and local manufacturing. He believed in the potential of the Indian EV market, particularly electric two-wheelers, and was willing to bet big on a mass offering completely made in India to reduce costs. Undaunted by the challenges, Aggarwal set upon turning his vision into reality with characteristic determination and audacity.

Fast forward to year 2024, and Aggarwal seemed to have pulled it off almost perfectly. His company easily dominated the e-2wheeler market, with a market share of around 50% and monthly sales of around 40,000 units. Ola, which depended on a handful of intrepid venture investors like Matrix and Tiger Global in its initial years, was even able to secure some of them handsome exits via a highly successful Rs 6,145 crore IPO in August 2024. 

However, barely a year later, the picture could not be more different for Aggarwal as he stares at sliding market share, unenthusiastic customers and dissatisfied investors.

The first six months of 2025 paint a stark picture of Ola Electric's precipitous fall from grace, with Ola Electric emerging as the biggest loser among all two-wheeler manufacturers, both in absolute and market-share terms.

During the first six months of 2025, Ola's sales fell by nearly half, from around 2.29 lakh in the first half of 2024 to 1.15 lakh during the first six months of 2025, according to Vahan numbers (which exclude Telangana data). On a monthly basis, it has gone from around 38,000 to just over 19,000, going by Vahan numbers.

Since this happened at a time when the overall market has grown, Ola's share of the two-wheeler market more than halved during the period to 1.25% from 2.54%. Within the EV segment, from approximately half of the electric two-wheeler market at its peak, the company has seen its market share contract to around 20%.

The Quiet Revolutionaries from Chennai

Meanwhile, as Aggarwal was making his big bets with a massive gigafactory in Tamil Nadu and opening hundreds of company-owned showrooms, two friends from IIT Madras had already been working on their own electric two-wheeler dreams for years, albeit at a dramatically different pace.

Tarun Mehta and Swapnil Jain, both engineering graduates with experience in the automotive sector, founded Ather Energy in 2013 with a philosophy that would prove prescient: build slowly, test thoroughly, and prioritize customer satisfaction over rapid market capture. Their obsession with quality was legendary – the Ather 450, their first commercial product, spent over four years in development and testing phases. The founders famously insisted on running thousands of test kilometers across India's challenging road conditions, from the pothole-ridden streets of Bangalore to the scorching highways of Rajasthan, before they were satisfied with the product's reliability.

While Ola was racing toward mass production, Ather was methodically developing its technology stack, from battery management systems to sophisticated software interfaces. The company's first prototype underwent more than 50,000 kilometers of real-world testing before the founders even considered it ready for limited production.

The Ather approach was almost antithetical to the startup playbook that dominated Silicon Valley thinking. Instead of "fake it till you make it," the company adopted a rigorous engineering discipline more reminiscent of traditional automotive manufacturers. Every component was tested extensively across India's diverse climatic and road conditions. Software updates were rolled out incrementally, with each iteration validated through real-world usage before broader deployment.

This conservative approach initially frustrated investors who were witnessing Ola's meteoric rise and media dominance. Ather's first commercial product, the 450, took years to develop and was initially available only in Bangalore. The company's geographic expansion was deliberately measured, with new cities added only after establishing robust service infrastructure and validating local demand patterns.

While Ola went for aggressive pricing and bold marketing, Ather was more focused on testing and long-term reliability data. The Chennai-based company soon built a small but fiercely loyal customer base willing to pay premium prices for superior build quality and innovative features like touchscreen dashboards and over-the-air updates. But it came at a cost: It had a smaller initial market footprint and watched as Ola dominated sales charts and media coverage. But it also meant that when quality concerns began surfacing across the broader EV market, Ather's products maintained their reputation for reliability and customer satisfaction.

Ather's Moment: The Vindication

The first half of 2025 has marked a dramatic vindication of Ather's methodical approach. While Ola struggled with declining sales and mounting customer complaints, Ather experienced its strongest growth period yet. Ather's monthly sales averaged over 13,500 units during H1 2025, consistently approaching and, in some months, even exceeding Ola's declining numbers – a development that would have seemed impossible just two years ago.

The launch of the Ather Rizta in early 2025 proved to be a watershed moment for the company. Designed specifically for family usage with enhanced storage and comfort features, the Rizta demonstrated Ather's ability to expand beyond its traditional premium urban segment without compromising on quality standards. The scooter's reception validated the company's thesis that Indian consumers, when presented with reliable alternatives, would choose quality over aggressive pricing.

Ather's successful IPO in March 2025 further cemented its position as a formidable player in the electric mobility space. Unlike Ola's IPO, which was followed by declining performance metrics, Ather's public listing coincided with its strongest operational performance, providing the company with substantial capital for expansion while maintaining investor confidence.

The company is putting up a new manufacturing plant near Aurangabad with a Phase 1 capacity of around 42,000 units per month and a total capacity of around 93,000 units/month (1 million vehicles/year). This ambitious expansion represents a stark contrast to the company's initial, measured approach. 

Ather is also aggressively expanding its geographical footprint, with the company entering multiple new markets -- particularly in North India -- to complement its base in the South. 

When the Swift Don't Always Win

The Ola-Ather dynamic echoes several historical business cases where aggressive early market leaders were eventually overtaken by more methodical competitors who prioritized sustainable advantages over rapid scaling.

In the global automotive industry, the story bears resemblance to the early days of the electric vehicle revolution when Tesla's initial dominance was challenged by traditional manufacturers who applied decades of automotive discipline to electric powertrains. While Tesla maintained innovation leadership, companies like Volkswagen and General Motors leveraged their manufacturing expertise and service networks to capture significant market share through more reliable, if less flashy, electric offerings.

The smartphone industry offers another parallel, particularly in the Indian market where aggressive pricing strategies by companies like Micromax initially disrupted established players, only to be eventually displaced by brands like Xiaomi and Samsung that combined competitive pricing with superior build quality and after-sales service.

Even in the two-wheeler industry itself, the rise and fall of various players over decades illustrates the importance of sustainable competitive advantages. Companies like LML, which once commanded significant market shares, eventually ceded ground to more operationally excellent competitors who better understood Indian consumer expectations around reliability and service.

These historical precedents suggest that while aggressive market entry strategies can create temporary advantages, sustainable leadership typically emerges from companies that can combine innovation with operational excellence, customer satisfaction, and systematic scaling approaches.

No Final Verdicts

As India's electric vehicle transition accelerates, driven by government policy support and increasing environmental consciousness, neither Ola's decline nor Ather's ascent should be viewed as permanent or irreversible. The market remains large enough to support multiple successful players, and consumer preferences continue evolving as the technology matures and charging infrastructure improves.

Ola Electric's current struggles, while significant, don't preclude a potential revival. The company retains substantial manufacturing capacity, a recognized brand name, and access to capital markets through its public listing. A strategic refocus on quality improvement, customer service excellence, and systematic rather than aggressive scaling could potentially restore consumer confidence and market position.

The lessons from global technology markets suggest that companies capable of learning from their mistakes and adapting their strategies often emerge stronger from periods of crisis. Ola's challenge lies in rebuilding consumer trust while maintaining the cost advantages and scale ambitions that originally defined its value proposition.

For Ather, the current success represents both validation and a new set of challenges. The company must now prove that its methodical approach can scale to mass market volumes without compromising the quality standards that have become its defining characteristic. The transition from a premium niche player to a mass market leader requires different capabilities and carries different risks.

The electric two-wheeler market in India ultimately reflects broader truths about building sustainable businesses in one of the world's most demanding consumer markets. Success requires not just innovation and ambition, but the operational discipline to consistently deliver on customer expectations while scaling efficiently.

In this ongoing narrative of contrasting strategies, the final chapter remains unwritten. Both the tortoise and the hare are still in the race, and Indian consumers will ultimately determine which approach – or perhaps which evolution of these approaches – proves most enduring in the country's electric mobility revolution.