- Tuesday, October 08, 2024
The latest plunge in Ola Electric’s stock price comes after an ugly social media spat between the company’s founder, Bhavish Aggarwal, and stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra
By: Shajil Kumar
SHARES of Ola Electric Mobility dropped as much as 8 per cent on Monday in early trade. This is the third consecutive day of declines for the electric vehicle maker, which has now lost ground in five of the last six trading sessions.
Ola Electric made its market debut in August and the stock has faced various challenges, with its value falling over 20 per cent in the past month alone.
The latest plunge in Ola Electric’s stock price comes amid a growing controversy over an ugly spat on the social media between the company’s founder and CEO, Bhavish Aggarwal, and stand-up comedian Kunal Kamra.
Social media spat
A war of words broke out between the two on Sunday on social media platform X over the after sales and service quality of the company’s electric scooters.
It started when Kamra responded to a post on X by Aggarwal, who posted a photo of Ola’s gigafactory, by putting a picture of several Ola Electric scooters parked together seemingly waiting for servicing.
“Do Indian consumers have a voice? Do they deserve this? Two wheelers are many daily wage workers lifeline …,” Kamra wrote along with the photo.
He tagged Union Road Transport and Highways minister Nitin Gadkari, asking: “Is this how Indians will get to using EV’s?” The comedian also tagged the official handle of Department of Consumer Affairs, Government of India @jagograhakjago, seeking an answer saying “any word?” Kamra further wrote, “Anyone who has an issue with OLA electric leave your story below tagging all…”.
To this Aggarwal responded, “Since you care so much @kunalkamra88, come and help us out! I’ll even pay more than you earned for this paid tweet or from your failed comedy career. Or else sit quiet and let us focus on fixing the issues for the real customers.”
He further said, “We’re expanding service network fast and backlogs will be cleared soon.”
To the “failed comedy career” remark by Agarwal, Kamra responded by posting a video clip of one of his shows with audience clapping and cheering and called the Ola Electric founder and CMD “arrogant and substandard”.
In response, Aggarwal said,”Chot lagi? Dard hua? Aaja service center. Bahut kaam Hai. (Did it hurt. It’s very less. Come to service center). I will pay better than your flop shows pay you.”
Kamra then challenged Aggarwal to “give a total refund to anyone who wants to return their OLA EV & who’s purchased it in the last four months”, saying he doesn’t need his money but “people not being able to get to their workplace need your accountability”.
“Show your customers that you truly care,” Kamra asserted.
Aggarwal hit back saying, “We have enough programs for our customers if they face service delays. If you were a genuine one, you would have known. Again, don’t try and back out of this. Come and do some real work rather than armchair criticism.”
Many Ola Electric consumers jumped into the spat and complained about the service quality of the company, asking Aggarwal to address their issues.
Dwindling market share
The EV firm continues to lose its market share in the Indian EV market and in September, its share further dropped to 27 per cent amid rising competition as well as its crippling service centres.
Ola Electric’s rivals have launched newer models which are priced closer to those of Ola, as its flagship S1 series EV scooter has become a nightmare for hundreds of customers who are consistently facing issues like malfunctioning hardware and glitching software and spare parts are hard to come by, resulting in inordinate delays.
An aggrieved Ola Electric customer torched its showroom in Karnataka last month, as the company’s social media platforms were flooded with complaints about its EV scooters. (Agencies)
