Lately, I read an article on mobility that mention three facts that surprised me:
- more than 50% of the traveled trips in our cities are less than 5 km
- the overage speed in the mega-cities ranges between 15 km/h and 30 km/h
- cars still dominating the mobility landscape with average weight in the 1500 kg
I realised that in my case too, living in the capital of Norway, Oslo, my mobility pattern is no different.
Transporting a 75 kg passenger in 1 500 kg car over a short distance is unsustainable! It is literally a transport of metal rather human! It should not be like that. We need new solutions that sustainability provide our daily mobility while not compromising our comfort, safety and wellbeing.
It happen that I am an expert in Solar Energy with a background in Engineering and I had the chance to work in my early career for one of the European Car Manufacturer. I started brainstorming my thoughts with my friends and family. In particular, I had long discussions with my friend Gerard from the Philipines. Gerard is a pioneer in the electric tricycles manufacturing in his country. He started his GerWeiss Motors company almost 11 years ago. Insights from Gerard where very helpful in shaping the design of our tricycle:
- compared to two wheelers, three-wheelers are stable by design which means that risk of accident is reduced. Old people, young children, passengers with reduced mobility and women's do not feel comfortable riding two-wheelers.
- compared to four wheelers, three-wheelers will be always lighter and therefore can it will consume less energy. They have also a small space foot-print making their manipulation in crowded cities much easier.
- the solution has to provide protection from the weather.
- fuel is the highest cost when operating bensin tricycles
This process ended by designing a new tricycle that addresses most of the challenged addressed above:
We named our tricycle OSLO after the name of the world electric mobility capital. Oslo has the highest ratio of electric cars in the world.
OSLO tricycle is less than 400 kg of gross weight and can carry two passengers and a driver. It is made to sustainably transport human rather than metals.
In addition, we believe that our solution is well adapted to Urban Mobility and Last-Mile Delivery. In fact, the latter are major challenges for cities, responsible for creating traffic congestion noise and air pollution. They account for more than half of the traffic in cities. Our Solar TukTuk is designed for purpose with a minimal space footprint, urban adapted, quite & safer which makes it ideal for Last-Mile Delivery and Urban Mobility. Solar PV cells integrated into the body transforms the hassle of being stuck in traffic to an opportunity to freely charge the batteries.
Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) of our solar TukTuk is 50% less than the petrol equivalent and 25 % less than electric allowing owners to double their income. Based on our projections, the solar cells integrated into the tricycle body can power the tricycle for up to 12 000 km/year of free range which exceeds the average yearly travelled distance in urban areas. As a consequence, our solution has the potential to totally eliminate the need for recharging from the grid, which results in up to 50 % reduction on the Total Cost of Ownership.
It is only the start, by creating Infinite Mobility AS, we set a mission to enable the vision of Energy-Positive Vehicles in which the vehicle will generate during its lifetime more energy than what it needed to operate it.
Other models are in the pipeline ( 2 and 4-wheelers). Stay tuned and support us by pre-ordering our tricycle! :)