Ola Electric appoints former LG Chem Power CEO Prabhakar Patil on board
PremiumPatil's coming on board will accelerate indigenously-designed and manufactured cells to the market.
Ola Electric on Wednesday announced the induction of EV battery designer and former LG Chem Power CEO Prabhakar Patil on its board as it pushes ahead with its plans for large-scale manufacturing of batteries.
Announcing the appointment through a blog, Ola founder and CEO Bhavish Aggarwal said the firm is investing deeply in core R&D to create indigenous advanced cell technologies and also in large-scale manufacturing of batteries.
Ola, he said, has applied for the grant of incentives under the PLI scheme for manufacturing batteries and is also scouting for opportunities to invest in advanced cell chemistry research and other battery technologies.
"I am thrilled to announce the appointment of Dr Prabhakar Patil to the Ola Electric board," Aggarwal said in the blog. "He is former CEO of LG Chem Power and has tremendous expertise in designing batteries for some of the leading EVs around the world."
Patil's coming on board will accelerate indigenously-designed and manufactured cells to the market.
"At Ola we are investing deeply behind core R&D to create indigenous advanced cell technologies as well as invest into large scale manufacturing of batteries," he said.
Ola has already applied for the government's production linked incentives (PLI) scheme for developing advanced cells and will set up a cutting-edge cell manufacturing facility with up to 50GWh capacity in India.
"We are also keenly scouting opportunities around the world for strategic investments into companies focused on advanced cell chemistry research as well as other battery technologies including fast charging that will allow us to provide higher density and higher battery performance for our upcoming range of two and four-wheeler EVs," he said.
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The ride-hailing startup, backed by Tiger Global and SoftBank Group Corp, made a foray into manufacturing electric scooters, building what is said to be the world's largest two-wheeler manufacturing facility near Bengaluru.
The new plant, which is planned to be expanded to an annual manufacturing capacity of 10 million electric scooters, will employ 10,000 women at full strength, making it the world's largest women-only factory.
"I look forward to working closely with Prabhakar as we deepen our focus and investments into advanced cell research as well as large-scale manufacturing to build the best battery technologies right here in India and create a global EV hub with our Futurefactory at its center," Aggarwal said.
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