I hope this will happen too, it would be amazing to have a standard battery where you could use 1 for an ebike or scooter, 2 for a moped, and 4 or more for small car or something. They would need to be about 2 KWh but if they were small enough it would be amazing. Charging docks around cities like gogoro.
Same situation in the e-bikes - super proprietary and even within brand, lots of obsolescence and incompatibility built in. I agree that innovation is driving some of this especially around batteries, but still you have to wonder if we can’t do better.
Why not using already existing battery pack services ? Even if you have to swap 4 scooter packs for this van. Mutualizing such swap stations among several brands, for several type of vehicles, seems to be the way to go to have a wide network.
I remember how long it took until the car industry agreed on one unified system to secure children's seats. I have a hard time seeing that happening with batteries in western markets.
That's nonsense. It would detract from the company's "proprietary profits". There is far too much money to be made from proprietary batteries, proprietary connections, proprietary recharge stations, future OTA software upgrades to unlock features that the consumer has already paid for. Look into the 'proprietary shemozzle' that is the current ev and ebike industry now. Next you'll start talking about a right to repair. Silly man.
@@Frombie_01 Not to mention charging other companies through the nose via Patent Rights to use what Government will force them to adopt as industry standard. See "Tesla Charging Connector"
Companies only seem to do this when they are forced to by the ISO, but hopefully this will happen sooner rather than later. Standardised form factors and connectors are a must if replaceable batteries are ever going to take off in EVs. The issue for the ISO will be to make sure that they don't jump the gun and settle on any particular design before an objectively *good* design can be invented and agreed upon.
@@Frombie_01 - yes the "new kid" calls for standardising - to "their one revolutionary design"... sound familiar ?? - ie, every popularist industrialist ever.
Sounds good on paper, but is it really needed? Phones don't have that, and they pretty much use the very same 2-3x battery sizes. 🤷♂ As long as it can be easily replaced and recycled after, I'm good. ✌
@@em0_tion yes it is. The idea is that there are battery stations throughout towns and villages, so not so good if there are a number of different types.
@@markthomasson5077 It only matter if you think battery swapping is going to take off. I personally think it won't, geographical small countries like the UK, we will get 600 miles plus range cars and at that range there are very few journeys in the UK of that length.
@@markthomasson5077 Interesting and fair point. Guess something similar as the popular drone (etc.) community's XT30/60/90 battery connector could easily be created as a standard. 👍
Very similar to Arrival from a few years ago (still going but basically backrupt). Micro-factories in cities (this one is build yourself, Arrivla was all robots building to save labour costs). Van looks similar, except in dimensions and costs
I like these simple L7e concepts. Pity that most EU politicians are to daft to realize that this category has huge potential. In Germany at ElectricBrands they are building the Xbus in this category. Hugely successful and are going into full-scale production in 2024 at VDL Nedcar in Netherlands. I cant understand why the EU is only subsidizing huge heavy electric cars and not these far more practical and lightweight EV's.
If only pension aged and "youngster" (+45 yr old) Germans and other Europeans smelled the smoke and stopped voting for EPP, ALDE and more fringe(fascist) politicians that offer nothing but tax breaks and thinly veiled racism/islamophobia/xenophobia
I suspect safety in these things isn't up to scratch. That's what prevents most vehicles from being sold in the EU. Just look at the new Tesla Cybertruck - a crazy-high-spec truck in the US, but untenable in the EU due to horrific safety ratings
@@abcbcd1834 The cybertruck is unsafe for pedestrians, not the occupants. But an L7 quadricycle will be unsafe for the occupants (and possibly the pedestrians as well), as there is very little crash structure present. While I'd love something like this (or a Citroen Ami) I would not want to be in an accident in one. Yes, being in the city you will probably only have a low-speed accident, but I've seen some crazy driving in 30mph zones, and if you were on the receiving end of a 45mph BMW hitting you when you're in a quadricycle, I would think it would be a very bad day indeed - much like some of the accidents seen by people in G-wiz...
The content's brilliant, but it's the people I watch this channel for, and I'd watch Rob drive anything. He's brilliant. Charming, intelligent, cheeky and passionate about clean tech. Love it.
First it needs to be able to cope with abysmal roads or no roads at all. And then it needs to compete with low quality chinese products. Useless in Africa and Asia.
These are cool, cute and super-efficient with a business model that breaks from how vehicles are built, acquired and charged. What's not to like. I hope to see them in Canada sometime in the near future.
Imagine all those big box stores that went bust and abandoned being retooled to EV-Factories. With the same underpaid and overworked staff with few to no benefits cranking out throwaway Junk EVs. Why not purchase a decades old used electric golf cart and update it with a Lithium Battery Pack?
I am an Uber Eats food delivery driver, and I can see some problems with this type of vehicle. The idea of driving 10 miles and then swapping a battery really wouldn't work. In my city, a single delivery might be up to 10 miles, and then what? I'd be stuck at somebody's house with a dead battery. You really need a vehicle that has about 150 miles of range, and the ability to fast charge when needed, in order to drive a full shift without stopping. I have looked at the possibility of using some of the early EV's such as the Mitsubishi i-Miev or the Nissan Leaf from 2010-2012, but even these vehicles, which cost a lot more than the equivalent petrol car from that year, don't have enough range for what I would need. Of course, there are newer vehicles with more range, but the purchase price of such a vehicle is out of the question. Most Uber Eats drivers are using small 10-15 year old depreciated vehicles that only cost a few thousand to purchase, to minimise their overheads, as Uber only pays a small amount per km of driving, and every cent counts if you are going to take something home in your pay packet. Yes, they are saying it will only cost 25 cents an hour for one of these little lightweight vehicles, but will it run for 8 hours straight and cover 150 miles? I would also question the speed these would get up to. It's probably like a Citroen Ami which can only do 40 km/h. I need to be able to use the motorways in my city to work efficiently, so it would need to do 100km/h to be viable. Edit: I looked up some specs on the Helixx and found that the speed is limited to 80km/h and the range is 124 miles with 6x 2kwh batteries but could be extended with 2 more batteries. That makes it more viable I guess, but you run up against the problem that even if there are battery swap stations in your city, are they in convenient locations, and what if you turn up and they don't have enough charged batteries ready to go? I would want to have the ability to charge the batteries in place at home. I couldn't see the point of lifting up to 8 heavy batteries in and out of the car every day, when I could just plug the car in and leave it overnight like any other EV. These ideas all sound great in theory, but swappable batteries while they may work well for casual use with a moped, for a business vehicle where you need on demand energy for hours on end, not so much.
@@apterachallenge - well sir, your use case will be a triple battery stack... (swap out at the pickup points - pretty simple - just like how Tamiya RC cars used to work) lol, it may not work for the ridiculously evolved car centric US cities (Australia too) - but in Asia the consumer only lives a few blocks over. (the urban sprawl was envisioned as a way for the Apparently - Noveau-affluent to escape the smelly inner city masses - who could never afford one of those "shiny new machines" - but secondhand cars got so cheap, the masses simply followed them out to the "burbs".)
Finally someone is going through with this concept which has been kicking around since the mid 1990's when Chrysler proposed the CCV (A Citroen 2CV knock off for rural China). Sandy Munro was also banging on about the idea of uber-minimalist bonded vehicles for years so its nice to see someone once again revive the concept with an electric twist! I'd take one immediately if I could get one!
Great idea and execution to this stage, the potential for the various models (van/pickup/flatbed etc) on a simple "clean" chassis without any additional "blingo-tech" that inflates cost and support issues is a WIN. Swappable & stackable batteries is certainly the right path BUT therein lies the gotcha as well, there are no standards and everyone is chasing their own flavour of battery packs. Ideally, working in tandem with the likes of Gogoro, a leader in small scale battery-swap would be a huge plus.
You fix a surprising amount of the issues with cars by just limiting their speed and weight. < 56 MPH (90 km/h) isn't exactly fast, but my average commute speed in the suburbs of Atlanta is 28 MPH. So it could very well be practical as a replacement for non-highway capable vehicles even in the US (if we allowed it....) while saving oodles on road maintenance thanks to road wear being roughly axle weight ^ 4. Safety is also less of a concern since the energy present would be dramatically lower. Prius going 70 MPH ~= 690 kJ L7e passenger at 56 MPH would be
Cracks me up that people think quadricycles are unsafe. It's just a moped that doesn't fall over. They act like if a vehicle doesn't have airbags anyone who gets in it will automatically die because as if by magic, a monster truck appeared, and chased them around until they were squashed flat for the temerity to be in a vehicle that's not a fully featured car. To be fair, that does happen all the time around my way so that's probably why they think that.
Some strong Arrival vibes with this one. I do however like the simplified quadracycle and Asian battery swap approach. Why carry more battery weight than you need to? I really hope they can get this business model to work. 🤞
Definitely, a case in point is Arrival, their shares are now pretty near worthless, but on the show it portrayed them as going to be a strong contender in the ev market.
@@nicolj434 well it is until they only have R&D and 3D renders to show for. and not much names on the list... and to be profitable you need the name on the list.
A vehicle like this will have little exposure to high-speed traffic. The inward slope of the lower half of the front end may also allow it to go nose up in a collision.
Yeah, shorter than a Fiat 500e is impressive. Although Fiat could also do that by simply realising that the back two seats do literally nothing in that vehicle unless you happen to have children under 8. :D
I love the idea of affirdable L6e and L7e. However I'm more interested in L6e-BP specifically. Possibly interested in L7e-CP, if they're possible to restrict/modify, to be registered (temporarily) as L6e-BP I know som vehicles have option to order different configurations as either L6e or L7e, but haven't seen any that can be ordered as L7e, but softwar/hardware restricted as L6e. This is especially interesting with younger drivers, where there are different age restriction on L6e and L7e.
It is a bit of an exaggeration to say that Asian cities still use two stroke scooters. Asian manufacturers are some of the leading two wheeler manufacturers in the world and they lead not only in numbers but also in technology.
The numbers sound difficult, but it will be interesting to follow their adventures. Eight hours per day of use results in $500 per year. For this type of product, any amortization of cost greater than 5 years is a fail. That means this must be less than $2500 to manufacture. Maybe the per hour charge assumes 24 hours per day($6) when the vehicle is rented/leased. That would be more workable. No question that mini-mobility is the bulk of the future in urban settings.
One of these with back seats would be great for my area here in America. It's super dense here so a small van would be great for groceries or picking up friends
That seems like a very smart model indeed, i can't imagine it not being successful.. Also sounds like something bigger companies would be looking to implement themselves..
Battery swap, pallet size, central driving position and subscription stand out the most, looks like it would fit in nicely on roads filled with small lightweight vehicles. What would happen if it got into an accident with a regular x tonne vehicle or lorry... I suppose it's safer than the mopeds, e-bikes, bikes and very small cars already on the roads though. Perhaps a financially less risky model would involve franchises, so they don't have to deal with issues like non-payment of subscriptions. If it is like software and they can turn the thing off remotely for non-payment, they need to make sure it can't be hacked to get around that. Good stuff though, imagine the transformation in air quality if this takes off :)
I love that shape, that height, that overall size. That's a fantastic target for the majority of cars on the road. I think 25c a day means something like $6 a day, which means ~$2000k a year. Amortized over maybe 5 years? So this is a $10k car? That's a great price point. How about a show on the Kia Ray EV, which already has this shape (though a little smaller) and does highways speeds? It's not $10k, but at $20k it's definitely affordable. It was great seeing a Canoo, by the way -- any chance you'll interview them to get an update?
I think it was 0.25c an hour, about 2190e a year, but hopefully you don't have to rent it by the year. Anything that adversities an hourly rate, but don't allow rental by the hour sounds scammy to me.
One possible issue using different small packs that are different ages, have different numbers of cycles and thus different capacity and internal resistances which means they will output power differently and increase imbalances between packs even further.
I thought it was the ox truck finally come to fruition ....wasn't that flat packed, moved from ice to ev, but I think this is smaller less robust. Everyone is going for this L7e market now.
I don't think you quite understand what a quadricycle is. L7e is an EU (and UK) designation for a heavy quadricycle so yeah, these are perfectly legal and safe in the developed world.
@@AdrianMcDaid well, Helix may be talking about Asia but that's not relevant as it's an L7e which is 100% European and fine to drive on our roads and not a crash safety problem of any kind.
If this is sharing the road with full sized vehicles, even at low speeds, it will be a death trap in the event of an accident with one of those vehicles. Only those who don't value their lives need apply. @@jonevansauthor
Agree. And Fully Charged not mentioning that ugly fact is being grossly negligent. These will be a death trap in the event of a crash with a full sized road vehicle, with which these will share the roads.
Great concept but as Robert said at the start, entering a market crowded with established car manufacturers who have deep pockets, is a tough challenge. Interesting episode - thanks. 👏👏
There's just SO much right with this. The key penetration point for EVs really SHOULD be utilitarian - directly addressing congestion, pollution and space issues in built up areas. For example - if the High Street is to have a future (especially with so many cities having near impossible or at least extortionate parking) I think we'll end up with a situation where shoppers go to stores, examine/choose and then buy items which are they're delivered by logistics people that day (probably from a local shared warehouse operation). It'd overcome the complication of getting something larger and more awkward home in a built up area without driving the customer to online-only sales (so they can see, examine, etc.). Return the human sales drive element to the chain too. I really can see this type of vehicle doing relatively small range, low impact delivery runs of items into crowded areas like this.. The depot can swap batteries out each time a vehicle returns too and recharge in a local bank - charge points for EVs is still a huge problem in many areas but setting that up at base with swap-out like this overcomes an awful lot of problems. I think the replication and standardisation is genuinely crucial - if the vehicle can be modular enough to make it dealer assembled for light fitout customisation for small fleets, etc. in country, that's quite a win. Another thing this could side-step is a real elephant in the room; the probability of globalised supply chains shutting down (Peter Zeihan goes into detail about this) due to more difficult shipping and offshoring. Allowing more flexible part supply and local assembly will probably be the only way forward at some point. Perhaps like the fictional Lexus in "Minority Report" built by an automated mini-factory on-site.
This is a good idea if they can make it work. One of the problems with EVs is that they are much more expensive than ICE vehicles, and cost will remain a prime consideration unless you have deep pockets. I liked this model because the buyer determines the range and size of the battery needed to fit their needs. However, I doubt the 25 cents per hour cost you mentioned here. It sounds too cheap, and as we have seen with all things electric, the prices quoted before full production are always increased once the vehicle is produced. Nevertheless, the potential for this vehicle to be a game changer, especially in places like Asia and Latin America and crowded urban environments, is real if they can deliver what they promise. I am keeping my fingers crossed, hoping they succeed.
Brilliant concept as always. Likely to need a very large minimum production & order volume for that price to break even at least. Video-wise it is strange & unnatural not to have the normal ending
I live in Indonesia and currently work in automotive metal part manufacturing. I think there is a great market for this kind of transportation, but the payment model is not applicable. You pay for sitting in a traffic jam, in Jakarta it takes you an hour to travel 10 km. It's great when you drive electric because when you're standing still you don't consume much electricity, so you only pay for the kilometers you travel. But if you pay per hour for the car, the interesting disappears. Another aspect is that you can't sit in a car without air conditioning here, it's just get too hot.
I believe the compact van with a smaller footprint is excellent, but I would appreciate seeing it with a taller roof. Given that electric vehicles have their weight positioned low, it should be capable of accommodating a higher roof design without significantly increasing the risk of top-heavy instability.
Since it doesn't have a big heavy battery, it doesn't really have that low centre of gravity. At 10kg per pack even 10 battery packs would be comparable to the engine and fuel tank of a diesel. And with moving pallets around, i don't think more height is a massive advantage unless you go two pallets high, which would get top heavy even with a heavy battery.
A subscription service is a bad idea, most people won't like the idea of not owning their car or van. Then the driving seat in the middle is a daft idea, not only is it strange but costs you a seat and removes some visibility on the drivers side. In a car/van designed to do delivery work it would also mean having to lean over to use barriers or intercoms.
Yeah that's not as wide as my desk but if I try and lean to imagine reaching out of the window for a parking ticket, I don't think I could do it, not being named Clyde. To me it'd be smarter to just make it easy to put the driving seat and wheel where you wanted, which should be super easy in design terms.
@@jonevansauthor Agreed. All the controls are drive by wire with the exception of the brake and maybe the wheel. But all you have to do is make the brake lines a few inches longer and put a right or left hand driving column in. That will not only make using intercoms and ticket machines easier but allow for a passenger. If this is meant as a delivery van the extra seat would mean a drivers mate can come too.
@@dave4803 Yup. Honestly zero reason it shouldn't be customer choice. If this were a PC case, you'd just have the mounting holes in it and put stuff where you want. There's no reason a dashboard has to be one big lump either. Just make it modular and let me mount the glovebox etc where I want.
@@jonevansauthor A car or van is a personal item, you want it to meet your needs and be nice to use. You also want to customize it too, a leased car you can't do that with. If they mount the speedo and switches just above the wheel it can be mounted anywhere. The old Rover SD1's had that, the dash was the same for left or right hand drive, they just blocked off the steering wheel hole on the side not used and screwed the speedo down on the relevant side. A simple idea but it works and it only cost them a steering rack.
@@dave4803 I didn't explain it but what I meant was, if you build the factory-ette in a RHD or LHD country, the vehicle should have been designed from the get go, for the cabin to be laid out according to local needs. I didn't really mean the individual customer but yeah, that should just be an option like other trim. You honestly don't need a lot of stuff in modern dashboards, it exists purely to make it look nice. If you are trying to get the cheapest, lightest vehicle, everything that doesn't improve the range, comfort, ability to hold your drink and lunch while you work etc etc etc, is a candidate for not having to be in the vehicle. As Elon says, the best part is no part. Now, my personal vehicle, I appreciate a little pointless luxury but I'd still rather have a cheap dash made of cheap stuff than a soft touch one. I honestly don't get why people want to fondle their dashboards that much. I would prefer a surface that doesn't attract fingerprints since that's easy and cheap. And I do appreciate a seat that doesn't hurt my back, again, cheap. If they do a 'car' version at some point, then selling a higher trim with nicer stuff would make sense. Anyway - I don't think the subscription model is likely to work out if their 25 cent model is the real plan. Presumably they've done the maths behind that though and maybe it just sounds completely insane and unworkable, but would actually be fine?
It's a great concept to have battery packs that can be replaced and held by an individual. However, there may still be some who find them too heavy, and I anticipate there will be a fair amount of drops from those who are clumsy, weak, or simply careless.
An excellent idea and with some potential for alternative 'bolt on' designs as well. The subscription model too, could be a winner, as up front cost for EV ownership has been my biggest bugbear in recent years. Small, light, versatile - what's not to like? I hope they are successful with their plan.
I can't see how $0.25/hr is possible. That has to be a mistake. That is $2/day. If the car costs $15000 (assuming a low number), you are looking at 25 years to just pay off the capital cost of the vehicle alone with zero percent interest never mind all the other business expenses and any profit. I can maybe see $5 or $10/hour as being possible and that is still a great deal.
10 месяцев назад
Idea sounds great. Van looks like a micro arrival. Business model sounds too good to be true?
At the start it looked like another episode of Tomorrow's World, with another Sinclair C5 demo. But can see it looks very cheap but useable to move big items. Thumbs up.
You should have sent Imogen along as she has an inside take on Arrival. I don't mean to put a negative spin on it but this company sounds like a copycat of Arrival which are about to joint Volta as a basket case / failure. Why don't the battery swap (2kWh briefcase type) all get together and agree a standard and then they can all use each others standard battery and make this type of vehicle vastly more usable. There will be standard batteries available in more locations if all companies adopt the same format / size / capacity etc. Changing the battery port should be easy so they can all use the same one. Its like the chademo / ccs battle of the battery world. They all need to see who has the most prevalent type and all make their designs to accommodate that and maybe contribute or set their own battery swap stations up with the same battery type which is interchangeable with small vans, e- scooters, e-bikes etc. "Subscription" seems to be the new phrase for "finance". Yes you can do a 1 month subscription but that is like someone "living" in an AirBnB as a permanent housing solution. Subscription seems to be the new trendy way of financing things and if you are BMW you think you can even do subscriptions for basic car functions like a heated steering wheel.
Am i the only one worried about the cable hanging/Dangling right in the front center beneath the bumper, also it looks like it will not survive any crash testing
I can actually see cities / municipalities going for this. Like "we've designed the new city tuktuk" come and pick one up at our factory when you apply for a licence.
It'd need a "non-car" classification, like trike motorbikes or similar, then be banned from the highways which would greatly limit utility as little as you'd want to try your luck with this at close to 100k.
@@volentimeh Motorbikes have to go through a roadworthy these days and this thing would not meet the standards. But fine for Asian cities etc good luck to them!
Two strokes are becoming quite rare now at least in Indonesia. What would be exciting would be the large scale replacement of mopeds with ebikes. Fuel costs are rising and making people nervous about the cost of living there. Ebikes are a perfect fit.
My biggest complaint-when and where can I buy one in my country (Canada)? And will my home city permit them on the road? Lots of work to be done but kudos to the teams and early adopters! I’ve never seen one on our roads, but recently came across an open garage door with an entire fleet of FedEx micro delivery vehicles (but didn’t see if EV or gas).
I think this concept has legs. Even if the initial iteration has some flaws or doesn't suit a particular market every part of this is relative simple to alter and customise for that market. Cost, of course, will be key and who bears the cost of the factory installation wasn't discussed (unless I missed that bit). What is more interesting still is that this is business model that goes beyond EVs and could be developed for other simplified large ticket items. Look forward to updates in the future.
Oh. Subscriptions. Sounds real bad. It's basically renting the thing. If it's actually just renting the thing it's fine. But. It has many many ways of going wrong. I'm sceptical but i do hope they succeed. I really hope. What i really want is to outright buy one of these. But. Eh. Will see.
Love FC and watched it for years but after hours of watching all these big ambitions of start ups and legacy autos, ultimately it just started and finished with Tesla and the Chinese after all.
Rivian, Lucid, maybe Canoo... maybe Aptera. Im not sure how much more the US market could bare. But there are a bunch of small delivery vehicle startups in Europe, and smaller mobility solutions in India and Africa. Who will survive past next year or even next week is anyone's guess. It is an incredibly difficult market.
@@thekaxmax Really? That rhetoric from 8 years ago doesnt really hold much water. We might lose a few imports, but the major brands look like theyll make it, and if they cant there are always bailouts.
I hope this modular vehicle built in 'ship-able' factories that are also modular does not go the route of ARRIVAL which used a similar methodology and some very fancy financial footwork in launching an IPO only to flame out disasterously. Arrival was featured on one of the Fully Charged episodes with one vehicle actually making it to the road. A great idea with no follow through. What is on the road, albeit built by a General Motors division in Ingersoll, Ontario, Canada, is the BrightDrop Zevo all-electric van and these have been taken up by FedEx and are on the streets of downtown Toronto delivering packages quietly and emissions-free. Not in the same league as Helixx but a proof of concept that all-electric delivery vans can be viable in an urban setting.
When I visited Sri Lanka the Rickshaw drivers actually slept overnight in their rickshaws, we drove past loads of them on the way back to our hotel. With these vans they'll get a proper night's kip with better security
The rolling chassis shown sitting behind Robert looks like it might support a small 2 seater sports car body, I wonder if they have any plans to supply anything other than vans. It also might not be a bad idea to sell chassis to the general public so they could create their own EVs.
I like the concept, but would want a RHD option, not central. I stick my head out my van when maneuvering and parking sometimes. I guess as it's modular this would be simple to implement though.
They're regulated like 3-wheel motor bikes, so have about the same crash worthiness. Understand why Fully Charged promotes them, as they are an island of cheap, in a sea of extremely expensive EVs. But find it ethically bankrupt for Fully Charged to extol the virtues of these death traps without even mentioning that they have no crash structures. They *will* be sharing the roads with full sized vehicles.
@@Trevellian Certainly less of a death trap than a polluted city where thousands who die and/or ill with cardiorespiratory illness. We are talking about cities where people are presently using vehicles with less crash worthiness than this. Clearly there are other cities in the world where relatively wealthy individuals drive around in vehicles which put everyone around them at increased risk due to their size and weight ...
