Indian mobility platform specialist Ola is to invest £100 million over the next five years in a global centre for advanced engineering and vehicle design, which will be based in Coventry, and will spearhead research into electric vehicles (EVs). The new facility, named Ola Futurefoundry, will work in partnership with the design and engineering teams based at Ola Campus in Bangalore, India.
The centre will house over 200 designers and automotive engineers across multiple disciplines of vehicle design, advanced high performance automotive engineering, digital and physical modeling and vehicle R&D around new energy systems including cell technologies. It will partner with education and research institutions in the UK to collaborate on technology research and development.
Bhavish Aggarwal, Ola founder and CEO, said: “Ola Futurefoundry will enable us to tap into the fantastic automotive design and engineering talent in the UK to create the next generation of electric vehicles. Futurefoundry will work in close collaboration with our headquarters in Bangalore, India to help us build the future of mobility as we make EVs affordable across the world.”
Wayne Burgess, vice president of vehicle design, Ola Electric, said: “We want to create a world class design and R&D team with global sensibilities. Ola Futurefoundry is an important step in building a multi-disciplinary team that is agile, flexible, and responsive to the various needs of our consumers around the world. We are setting up in Coventry a global epicenter of automotive and technology talent. Futurefoundry will supplement and collaborate with our core team in Bangalore, India to deliver exciting new EVs across two wheeler, four wheeler and other form factors.”
