Ola Electric Roadster: From Market Conviction to Production Execution

During his internship at Ola Electric, Krishnam formed a view on where EV penetration in India would move next. The dominant narrative in the market was centered on scooters, but the underlying sales data told a different story: India's two-wheeler market was structurally bike-dominated, not scooter-dominated, and the numbers made that clear.

This data point anchored a broader conviction: an electric bike would find a larger addressable market in India than an electric scooter, and the company's product roadmap should reflect that. The conviction translated into action. Ola Electric moved forward with the Roadster, its electric bike product line.

Krishnam's role in the Roadster launch was on the production and planning side. He was responsible for overseeing production data and quality on a day-to-day basis, identifying and resolving bottlenecks as they arose. One of the central challenges was the bill of materials cost: the bike's BOM at initial costing came in above the target launch price, which would have made the product unviable at the intended price point.

He worked with the team and vendors to identify components where cost could be reduced and evaluated whether a more modular architecture could bring the BOM down to a viable level. The work involved going back to vendors, renegotiating on specific components, and stress-testing the architecture for cost efficiency. The BOM cost was brought down to a level that made the launch viable.