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Description
Traffic around the globe, especially in cities, is getting worse every year as world’s population is growing and urban population is growing at an even higher rate due to people moving from rural areas to major cities. This trend has resulted in major traffic jams in cities around the world as people spend more hours in traffic congestion nowadays than ever before. In addition to the loss of valuable time for citizens, higher usage of cars and increased travelling times due to traffic congestion is a significant contributor to global warming as vast majority of the cars on our streets still use petrol engines.
In tackling this environmental issue, electric cars could provide a potential solution. However, the share of electric cars on our streets is still marginal due to cost and comfort factors and, what is even more important, with the current energy balance in the EU, electric cars produce almost the same amount of carbon emissions during their life cycle as petrol cars. On the other hand, current light electric vehicles, such as electric bikes or kick scooters, on the market have several limitations in order for them to be widely considered alternative means for transport and as a solution to decreasing carbon emissions in the transportation sector.
Project promoter aims to solve this problem by developing the next generation electric scooter, integrating it with COMODULE IoT software, as well as improving the software and diagnostics tool for the solution from current level. The solution would be applicable in scale either through selling it to current operators and/or establishing COMODULE’s own ride-hailing platform.
Summary of project results
Project addressed global traffic jam problems as the main the challenge. For solving this, the next generation electric scooter was developed in order to widen the alternative means for transport and as a solution to decreasing carbon emissions in the transportation sector.
Through extensive testing, Co-Scooter’s reliability was improved, also its lifetime was extended. For better user experience, a different motor controller setups were developed to unlock new features such as automatic regenerative braking and ECO mode. Through extensive development and testing, a new product Co-Scooter’s is ready to be commercialised. The Co-Scooter was exhibited at Micromobility America Conference in San Francisco and at MOVE fair in London. The scooter was featured in the biggest French newspaper La Figaro and French TV channel Canal+. In addition, the Co-scooter is now used as the official transportation mode for the Estonian Embassy in Paris. On December 9, a representative of Comodule was speaking at the Baltic Sustainability Awards conference and introduced the Green ICT project in her presentation (https://www.future-hub.eu/future-forum).
Product development has lead to commercialisation phase of Co-Scooter, which, meets the expectations of market participants and has a great impact on both the market and the environment. A total of 29 jobs were created during the project period, product testing revealed that CO2 emissions were reduced by 10 990 tonnes in 2021. Although the economic impact has remained modest due to the to rapid growth and availability of product components, the planned growth in turnover and growth in operating profit is considered achievable in upcoming years.