Ola unveils its self-drive car-sharing offering ‘Ola Drive’

Pioneering mobility in India, Ola, one of the world’s largest ride-hailing platforms, launched ‘Ola Drive’, a car-sharing service.

The service has been initially rolled out for users in Bengaluru with Hyderabad, Mumbai, and New Delhi to follow shortly.

To build and scale up the service across several Indian cities, Ola intends to host a fleet of 20,000 cars by 2020, 50% more than the fleet size of the entire industry put together. With over 200 million subscribers, Ola Drive has the largest user base for a car-sharing service in the country.

Ola Drive takes a refreshing look at the current self-driven car rental industry in India, by enabling users to design their own package, controlling everything from the number of kilometres and hours, to fuel inclusion. This makes the service highly customised for users, and the freedom of choice allows for savings of upto 30% over other providers.

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. Users will also have access to the platform's 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. The service will also include road-side assistance, to ensure 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.”

He further added, “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.”

Ola will introduce the service to users in Bengaluru through pick-up stations located across different residential and commercial hubs. Users can choose to book a car of their choice for as little as two hours, which makes Ola's new venture the most flexible car-sharing service in India. Ola 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.