Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola Electric’s Co-Founder & CEO, is on a mission to jump-start future mobility in India, along the way reversing climate change and motivating the country’s huge population to make the switch to electric two-wheelers. Earlier this week, he launched his company’s new S1 full-electric scooter from the top of “the world’s largest two-wheeler factory” being built by Ola in India.

Ola, who Aggarwal co-founded with Ankit Bhati, CTO, is more well known as India’s largest mobility platform and one of the world’s largest ride-hailing companies. It has helped revolutionize urban mobility by making it available on-demand for over a billion people across three continents. Now the company’s execs want to transition the world to more sustainable mobility and make the world “better than we found it” with Ola Electric.

“To reverse this situation on climate change, we need a revolution—a revolution that we will start here in India and then take around the world,” said Aggarwal.

He says the Ola Futurefactory will eventually have 15% of the world’s capacity for two-wheelers, producing 10 million scooters a year—or one scooter every two seconds. The factory is also going to be the biggest building in India, fitting within itself both the Mumbai and Delhi airports.

The factory is being built on a 500-acre site in Tamil Nadu, India. Ola Electric is racing ahead to operationalize the first phase, with a 2 million annual capacity “very soon” and a full capacity of 10 million vehicles per year to be completed next year.

“This scale is the only way we bring this revolution here fast and make electric two-wheelers accessible to everybody,” he said. “With our Futurefactory, we will also usher in a new modern era of Industry 4.0 here in India. The past paradigms of manufacturing were built in China, but the future of manufacturing will be written here in India.”

Almost 80% of the vehicles sold in India are two-wheelers, with about 20 million sales a year. Yet only about 12% of the population owns a two-wheeler. So the potential impact on sustainability is promising.

“As we develop as a nation, we need to ensure many more people get access to a two-wheeler,” he said. “Our goal at Ola has been to build products [that] are both sustainable and revolutionary compared to what exists in the market. We’ve designed a scooter that has the best design, best performance, and best technology—quite simply it’s the best scooter ever built.”

The S1 is designed to be “young and vibrant” with best-in-class functionality, fluid design, iconic headlamps, large boot space for two helmets, and stunning colors.

The S1 comes with three modes: Normal, Sport, and Hyper. In top Hyper spec, it can accelerate from 0 to 40 km/h (25 mph) in just 3 s, from 0 to 60 km/h (37 mph) in just 5 s, going on to a top speed of 115 km/h (71 mph).

According to Aggarwal, the scooter has the most powerful motor in the category, with 8.5 kW at its peak, and the largest battery pack, with a 3.92-kW·h capacity.

“Both are industry benchmarks, almost 30% higher than anybody else,” he said.

The battery can be charged in 6 h in an Indian home with a 750-W portable charger, or to 50% in just 18 min in Ola’s Hypercharger network across India. The IDC (Indian Drive Cycle) range is 181 km (112 mi) per charge.

Vehicle control is pretty simple. Reversing in and out of parking spaces is easy, with a twist of the throttle in the direction opposite that for forward travel. On a slippery slope, the motor’s hill-hold function keeps the S1 in place. Cruise control automatically maintains speed on the go.

Enabling this performance and simple functionality is a new operating system called Move OS with multiple “leapfrog” technologies. Its 7-in touchscreen display is said to be the sharpest and brightest ever put in a scooter. It is backed by a vehicle computer designed and engineered by Ola in India and powered by an OctaCore processor with 3-GB RAM and high-speed connectivity through 4G, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth Low Energy technologies. The scooter locks and unlocks by rider proximity, app use, or touchscreen.

Customization of the riding experience is a key selling point through Moods, changing the look, feel, and sound of the scooter. The four Moods at launch are Bolt, Care, Vintage, and Wonder. Bolt is designed for those who love speed. For Care, the tree of a rider’s choice will grow as much as the carbon dioxide saved by riding the S1. Vintage is inspired by the heritage of the finest craftsmanship of the ‘50s. Wonder a sci-fi experience with the sound to match.

The scooter’s sound can also be customized, from completely silent, to inspirations from nature, and classical Indian instruments—or to exact tastes. The touchscreen comes pre-loaded with information by Mood, but a user swipe provides access to other information and a choice of widgets.

“The S1 provides the best navigation experience on any vehicle, so you never need to strap a phone to your scooter’s dashboard again—and all of this works even if you have offline,” said Aggarwal.

In India, scooters are family vehicles, so every member of a family gets their own profile. The Ola Electric app can keep its users updated with live location tracking to remote battery and health alerts. It allows appointments to be made for at-home service.

The S1 can be controlled through a multi-microphone array and AI speech-recognition algorithms built in-house with the user initiating an action with “Hey, Ola.” In the S1 launch video, Indian rapper, lyricist, dancer, TV personality, and music composer Raftaar demonstrated the possibilities.

The scooter comes in two variants: the S1 and S1 Pro. The S1 has a 121-km (75-mi) IDC range and 90-km/h (56-mph) top speed. The S1 Pro is the spec headliner at 181 km of range and a top speed of 115 km/h.

The S1 is priced at Rs 99,999 (about $1345), and the S1 Pro for Rs 129,999, with Indian state subsidies making them more affordable than most petrol scooters, according to Aggarwal.

S1s can be reserved at olalectric.com, with deliveries starting in October.

In a blog post just before the S1 launch, Aggarwal challenged the industry with its Mission Electric pledge that no gasoline two-wheeler will be sold in India after 2025.

“It’s time for India to lead the way in electrification and build technologies of the future, here in India for the entire world,” he concluded.