Ola to invest $500 mn in EV battery R&D unit

Ola electric the riding hailing firm's electric vehicle arm is investing about $500 mn for setting up its battery innovation centre in bengaluru. Bhavish Aggarwal led ola said that BIC will be one of the world's largest and most advanced cell reasearch and development facilities more than165 unique and cutting edge laboratory equipment to cover all aspects of cell related R&D. The company didn't reveal the time period for the investment. But according to the sources it is 3 to 5 years. In India softbank backed Ola is now in direct competition with electric two wheeler makers like  Ather energy, Hero electric, Tvs motor company, Bounce and Boom motors. The firm also has plans to launch electric cars, motorcycles, sport utility vehicles, and robotaxis. The centre will be capable of developing complete packages of battery pack design, fabrication, and testing under one roof. BIC will also be equipped with in house production capability of mg to kg scale of anode and cathode material, integrated facility for hand-in-hand nanoscale analysis , molecular dynamics simulation, an in-house crystal structure analysis  to develop new battery material.