Project Overview
Ola Electric is leading India’s two-wheeler EV revolution with the S1 — a high-performance electric scooter featuring a 7-inch touchscreen and a keyless experience, all integrated with the Ola Electric app.
With the MoveOS 3 rollout in late 2022, we set out to solve a growing user need: letting others use your scooter without sharing your passcode or risking security. Enter: Profiles on Scooter — a feature that allows secure and personalized multi-user access.
The Problem
Sharing a keyless scooter with friends or family meant constantly changing passcodes — a hassle and a major security risk.
With millions of Ola S1 scooters on the road, users needed a safe and simple way to share their ride without compromising control or convenience.
Research & Discovery
To understand how others handled secure multi-user access, we explored car systems like Tesla and Rivian, where guest profiles and digital keys are common. But for two-wheelers, this was nearly uncharted territory. We asked ourselves:
Early Explorations
Our initial idea was simple: a Guest Access flow. Owners could generate a temporary passcode that expired after a set time — no need to share their phone number or login. It felt quick and intuitive, like handing over a spare key.
But the more we explored, the more the risks surfaced. If someone reused the passcode or the owner forgot to revoke access, the scooter could be left vulnerable.
What started as a lightweight solution revealed serious security gaps. That’s when we shifted focus toward a more robust, profile-based system tied to identity and access control.
Introducing Scooter Access
Share your scooter Effortlessly with friends & family while allowing riders to manage their own profiles. Scooter riding becomes even more convenient than ever! Allow riders to manage their own profiles.
Keeping Scooter Owners Informed
One of the key concerns while enabling scooter sharing was transparency — how does the owner stay in control once someone else is riding?
We solved this by repurposing existing scooter states and subtly updating the in-app copy. This allowed the system to clearly show who is currently using the scooter and where it is — all without needing to build new tracking logic from scratch.
This small design and copy tweak had a big impact: owners now had full visibility at all times, making the experience feel secure and seamless.
Rollout & User Reaction
We launched the feature to a limited group during the MoveOS 3 BETA release in October 2022, gathered early feedback, and made refinements.
It officially rolled out to all Ola Electric S1 users in December 2022 as part of the MoveOS 3 update.
Outcome & Impact
The feature solved a key user pain point and improved the ride-sharing experience across households, couples, and roommates — all while reinforcing Ola’s commitment to safety, security, and personalization.
By bringing multi-user access to two-wheelers — a feature previously only seen in high-end cars — we made Ola scooters even more versatile and family-friendly.
