Explained: Why are Ola, Okinawa and Pure EV recalling their electric scooters

New Delhi, Apr 25: With several incidents of electric scooters catching fire, Ola Electric said that it is recalling one 1,400 of its electric scooters. The move comes in the wake of Union Transport Minister, Nitin Gadkari asking EV makers to take advance action and recall all defective batches of their vehicles immediately.

The company is recalled 1,441 scooters of a specific batch, the one which had burst into flames when it was parked on the road at Pune last month.

"Our internal investigation into the March 26 vehicle fire incident in Pune is ongoing and the preliminary assessment reveals that the thermal incident was likely an isolated one. As a pre-emptive measure, we will be conducting a detailed diagnostics and health check of the scooters in that specific batch and therefore are issuing a voluntary recall of 1,441 vehicles," Ola said in a statement.

Ola also said that the scooters that are recalled will be inspected by its service engineers. These bikes would go through a diagnostics check.

Incidents of electric scooters catching fire are on the rise. Such incidents have been reported by Ola, Okinawa, Pure EV and Jitendra EV. Earlier this month 20 electric scooters made by Jitendra EV caught fire while being transported from the factory in Nashik.

In the wake of these incidents, Pure EV has initiated a recall of 2,000 electric scooters, while Okinawa said that it was recalled 3,000 of its vehicles to check for potential safety issues.

Earlier this month, Gadkari said that if the EV makers are found negligent in their process, the government would impose a heavy fine on them and also order a recall of all their defective EVs. He also said that the quality-centric guidelines would be issued soon.