Ola has launched ‘Ola Drive’, a self-drive car-sharing service to take on Mahindra-backed ZoomCar, Revv and others. The service is already live in Bengaluru with Hyderabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi to follow shortly. Ola said that it intends to host a fleet of 20,000 cars by 2020, 50% more than the fleet size of the entire industry put together.
On the app, you can choose the Drive option on the top, click plan your drive, confirm start and end time (from 2 hours to 60 days), select the number of kilometers even fuel inclusion, in addition to the free kilometer with fuel mentioned. This allows for savings of upto 30% over other providers, says the company. For Bengaluru, there are lot of cars to choose from Maruti Suzuki Dzire, Swift, Ciaz, Hyundai Xcent, i10, i20, Verna, Creta and Renault Captur.
Ola said that it conducted research with individuals with different driving experience levels to get a keen understanding of their preferences. The insights helped Ola to procure user-preferred car models, enable high-quality repairs and maintenance structures to ensure every user gets a fresh and high performing vehicle, added the company.
All Ola Drive cars across segments will come equipped with Ola’s connected car platform ‘Ola Play’, enabled through a 7-inch touchscreen infotainment device, and will include GPS, media playback, and Bluetooth connectivity, said the company. There is also support and safety features such as a 24/7 helpline, emergency button (which prompts an immediate call from Ola’s dedicated safety response team) and real-time tracking, as well as road-side assistance, promising a reliable, secure and comfortable driving experience.
Arun Srinivas, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer at Ola, said:
We are very excited to launch the Ola Drive category to consumers, a big step towards building a holistic shared mobility landscape in India. India’s car-sharing market has immense potential and opportunity, which is yet to see a large scale investment in technology and operations to make the model viable. Ola has been deep-rooted in India’s mobility landscape, building technology enabled transportation solutions for millions of users. Our expertise in serving millions of customers through a large fleet of vehicles across 250 plus cities has been instrumental in making ride-hailing a norm in India. Ola Drive has been built on the same DNA and will play a transformative role in defining India’s car-sharing market in the next decade.
In the first phase of its roll-out, Ola Drive will be offered as a short-term self-drive car-sharing service as we look to introduce long-term subscription, corporate leasing, and more options in the times to come.