Hyundai-Kia To Invest $300 Million In Ola

After a long wait, the CCI (Competition Commission of India) has approved an investment of $300 million into India’s home-grown cab-hailing and ride-sharing platform; Ola. The Korean giant Hyundai and its subsidiary KIA are planning to inject the said sum into this startup. The CCI announced the approval of the investment through a tweet. However, no press release has been posted on the CCI’s website till now.

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• In March, Ola had clearly stated that an amount of $300 million was being raised from the Hyundai Motors to add a bunch of new changes in its India-specific electric vehicle, mobility solution and infrastructure.
• Initially, the deal between Ola and Hyundai stated that the Korean carmaker will be investing a sum of $300 million into Ola’s parent company ANI technology. However, the documentation submitted by Ola in Sept. 2019 stated that now Hyundai will be investing a sum of $250 million into ANI technologies and an additional $50 million in Ola’s electric mobility segment.
• The deal was in severe jeopardy when ANI technology had severely failed to provide a report where they had to define the market of electric mobility in cab-hailing services and their application for clearance was deemed invalid.
• Additionally, ANI technologies did submit another application wherein they somehow managed to submit the competition landscape report through which they were able to provide a clearer picture of its competitive market.

Why Hyundai Plans to Invest in EV’s for India?

Hyundai believes that with passing time the electric vehicle industry in India will gain more traction in commercial use as compared to personal use.

In July, Hyundai had assured to invest $200 million for its EV project to develop affordable electric vehicles under its ‘Smart EV’ platform.

Hyundai is also focusing on taking private ownership by partnering with a South Korean company Namyang and develop R&D centres to assess consumer requirements to roll out affordable EVs.