Ola Electric Turns to Dealers After Years of Service Complaints and Falling Sales

Ola Electric is opening its sales and service network to dealer partners across India, a move that follows nearly two years of mounting customer complaints, regulatory action and an erosion of its lead in the electric two-wheeler market. The Bengaluru-based company announced the shift on Wednesday, targeting a full dealership footprint by Diwali 2026.

For five years, Ola Electric relied on company-owned stores to build its brand and its customer base, which now exceeds a million riders, the largest for any electric two-wheeler maker in India. But the model came under strain as volumes grew faster than service capacity. The National Consumer Helpline logged 10,644 complaints against the company between September 2023 and August 2024, prompting the Central Consumer Protection Authority to issue a show-cause notice in October 2024 over alleged unfair trade practices. Ola's claim that 99.1 per cent of those complaints had been resolved was later challenged by the regulator after it contacted a sample of customers directly, and the matter has since moved to a detailed investigation, with a hearing held in November 2025.

The pressure was not limited to service quality. In April 2025, Maharashtra transport authorities shut 75 Ola Electric stores within 24 hours after finding that most outlets inspected lacked valid trade certificates, seizing 192 scooters in the process. The company called the action "speculative, incorrect and misplaced" and said it was in the process of securing approvals, but similar notices followed from other states and the Union road transport ministry.

The commercial impact was significant. Ola's market share, which stood above 50 per cent in April 2024, fell to roughly 15 per cent through 2025, according to Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations data, with retail sales down more than 51 per cent to under two lakh units for the year. TVS, Bajaj and Ather all posted strong gains over the same period, with Ather overtaking Ola to become the third-largest electric two-wheeler seller, aided in part by wider dealer and service networks that could absorb demand faster than Ola's own stores.

Bhavish Aggarwal, Chairman and Managing Director, framed the dealer transition as a natural evolution rather than a response to these difficulties. "We built our own stores first because trust in EVs had to be earned store by store, city by city. Now, as the category matures, our job is to bring EVs to every corner of the country, and dealer partners understand their local markets in ways no company-owned network can replicate at that scale," he said.

Ola has already taken steps to address service gaps, including a HyperService initiative and dedicated service centres launched in late 2025. Auto industry veteran BVR Subbu, who helped build Hyundai Motor India's dealer network in the 1990s, has rejoined the company as Senior Advisor to support the rollout. Whether dealer partners can rebuild trust that company stores struggled to sustain will determine how quickly the transition delivers results.