Ola electric battery unit head Ashok Saraswat quits

Ola Electric Mobility's head of advance battery engineering, Ashok Saraswat, has resigned, becoming the latest of at least half a dozen senior executives who have left the electric vehicle company in the past six months, two people aware of the matter said.

Saraswat had joined SoftBank-backed Ola in 2021.

He is likely to move to a conglomerate which is entering the battery business, one of the people said.


Ola Electric did not reply to a question on Saraswat. In a statement to ET, the company, however, said Rajesh Mekkat, who joined it two years ago, was responsible for research and advanced engineering in lithium ion-cell batteries.

Saraswat is leaving even as Ola Electric is set to commence operations at its new R&D facility, Battery Innovation Center. A $500 million campus spread over half a million sq ft in Bengaluru, it will house Ola Electric's battery research operations and be used for studying new cell forms, as well as for design, fabrication and testing. "The company is working on next-generation cell technology... ranging from solid-state battery technology to sodium-ion batteries and is hiring global talent across cell domains," the company said.

The startup said it would also hire more than 1,000 employees for its cell project.