The shares of Ola Electric Mobility plunged steeply over 8% this morning, down 43% from its post-listing peak, as complaints about its flagship electric two-wheelers kept flooding social media. This is the third straight session the EV maker declined.
The latest Ola stock crash comes after a public spat between founder Bhavish Aggarwal and comedian Kunal Kamra after the latter flagged the situation of its service centres.
Mr Kamra had called out Mr Aggarwal for not responding to the situation while the irked Ola founder started slamming the comedian over “failed comedy career” and “flop shows”.
Mr Aggarwal said it was a “paid tweet” by Mr Kamra, and he should either help them or “sit quiet”.
The spat took an ugly turn with him inviting Mr Kamra to an Ola service station for work and offering him better pay than his shows while Mr Kamra kept pressing for him for 100% refund to aggrieved Ola customers.
The argument divided the social media with many finding it wrong to go after the wealth creators. Another section, however, found it distasteful for a company executive to engage in such spats while his firm was fighting a crisis.
A social media user called it “peak arrogance” of Mr Aggarwal for trolling a comedian while his company was facing the customers’ wrath over delayed servicing.
“Ola EV Customers in Karnataka setting Ola Showroom on fire for not servicing their vehicle since month meanwhile their CEO Bhavish Aggarwal is busy trolling Kunal Kamra for bringing facts in public, Peak Arrogance,” the user said.
Ola Electric debuted in the share market two months ago. Government data suggests the company recorded its lowest monthly sales in September this year as servicing network challenges threaten its market dominance.
The company sold 23,965 vehicles in September – recording a month-on-month decline in sales amid complaints over the malfunctioning hardware and glitching software in some of its EV scooters.