CCPA investigates Ola Electric over service and product standards
India’s top product certification agency will investigate e-scooter maker Ola Electric’s shortcomings in service standards and product issues, India’s consumer affairs minister told Reuters on Thursday.
Last month, the Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) sent Ola Electric a notice seeking an explanation from the SoftBank-backed company after the consumer rights agency received an unusually high number of 10,000 complaints.
Ola, India’s largest e-scooter manufacturer, responded that it had resolved 99.1 percent of complaints.
After considering that response, the CCPA has now asked the Bureau of Indian Standards to conduct a detailed investigation into the matter, Consumer Affairs Minister Nidhi Khare said on Thursday.
Ola Electric did not immediately respond to an email from Reuters seeking comment.
The complaints were mainly over “minor” issues, Ola’s founder Bhavish Aggarwal said during an earnings call last week.
“Two-thirds of these are actually just minor issues, such as loose parts or customers not being familiar with the software being used,” Aggarwal said.
The mounting complaints and subsequent regulatory scrutiny have cast a shadow on the e-scooter maker following its stellar market debut in August.
Shares of Ola Electric are down about 7.6 percent from their listing price of Rs 76. On the day, stocks were down about one percent, while auto stocks were up 0.5 percent.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
