• Ola Electric has decided to refund Rs 130 crore to customers who purchased charging devices or offboard chargers for their electric scooters, following a violation of the FAME scheme guidelines that prohibit charging accessories from being marketed at a premium.
• This decision by Ola Electric is a significant step in ensuring customer satisfaction and could prompt other EV manufacturers to follow suit in upholding the FAME scheme guidelines.

Ola Electric recently announced that it will refund Rs 130 crore to customers who purchased charging devices or offboard chargers for their electric scooters.

This decision to return Rs 130 crore follows an inquiry that discovered charging accessories were being marketed at a premium, which appears to be a blatant breach of the FAME (Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles) scheme requirements.

In more detail, the FAME scheme requirements specify unequivocally that important pieces such as chargers and proprietary software shall not be supplied to the client as accessories. This is to ensure that the price of an EV remains cheap in order to further stimulate EV adoption. As a result, any breach of the FAME system guidelines may result in the withholding of subsidies. This can put EV producers in a tough situation because it may result in a significant loss for the company.

Ola Electric was discovered to have offered off-board chargers as accessories for its Ola S1 Pro electric scooters. These chargers range in price from Rs 9,000 to Rs 19,000 for Ola clients. Furthermore, the refund is only applicable to bills generated between FY 2019-20 and March 30, 2023. While Ola Electric has admitted its mistake and is doing the right thing, some EV manufacturers have yet to accept this violation, and the government plans to recover up to Rs 249 crore from these EV manufacturers.

Despite the fact that Rs 130 crore is a large sum of money, Ola Electric has admitted its mistake and decided to refund the money to its customers. This is a positive step for the EV manufacturer, and we anticipate that other EV manufacturers will follow suit.