Oct. 3rd 2018 8:10 pm

KYMCO just unveiled Ionex Commercial, their new business-to-business (B2B) solution designed to help companies switch to electric scooters. The platform is built to aid businesses and governments by providing a simple and easy electric scooter service. Ionex Commercial includes multiple models of battery-swappable electric scooters as well as turnkey battery charging stations and a host of management and logistic software solutions.

The announcement was made by KYMCO’s chairman Allen Ko during the unveiling at the Salle Wagram event center. The ceremony was part of the Paris Motor Show.

KYMCO’s Ionex electric scooters

Earlier this year, KYMCO unveiled their new line of Ionex electric scooters.

The scooters make use of 50 V, 650 Wh lithium-ion batteries that can be removed for quick battery swapping. Most scooters can hold two or more batteries, allowing for longer range. Additionally, KYMCO unveiled their Ionex charging stations which allow riders to charge batteries in a vending machine style charger.

The original line of Ionex scooters announced earlier this year were intended for private use by consumers. But now KYMCO has set their sights on commercial users and governments as well.

Ionex Commercial is the next step in KYMCO’s plan to displace gas scooter with electric scooters by targeting corporate and fleet customers.

Ionex Commercial electric scooters

Ionex Commercial was announced along with three new electric scooters designed for different commercial purposes.

The Like EV scooter is designed for scooter share programs that can be operated by either private businesses or local governments. The scooters are designed for long periods of use in fleets of shared scooters. Customers can locate the scooters on a smartphone app and rent them for short trips around urban areas.

Similar scooter share programs already operate in cities such as Paris, Berlin, New York, San Francisco and Pittsburgh.

The Carry EV electric scooter is designed for cargo purposes. KYMCO’s Ionex Commercial unveiling included footage of Carry EV electric scooters being used in warehouses and factories for transporting goods and equipment.

The Tube EV electric scooter includes a large rear cargo trunk. It is intended for use with delivery companies such as Deliveroo, which uses electric scooters as delivery vehicles in European cities.

According to KYMCO Chairman Allen Ko:

“Logistics companies and retail companies also gain tremendous advantages from an electric delivery fleet. In-house charging stations eliminate trips to gas stations. Simpler mechanics of EVs translates to lower maintenance costs. Energy consumption analytics enables improved operations. And factors like no exhaust, no noise and no vibration from electric vehicles vastly elevate the working conditions of the fleet’s employees.”

The three new scooters are the backbone of KYMCO’s Ionex Commercial platform, but the solution includes more than just the scooters.

Complete turnkey solution for commercial electric scooters

One of the major advantages of the Ionex Commercial solution is that it is an all-encompassing provider. KYMCO has created both the hardware and the supporting network to establish a complete system that is ready for a wide range of commercial uses.

On the hardware side, Ionex Commercial includes the electric scooters, removable batteries and the charging stations. Each is optimized with commercial use in mind.

On the support side, Ionex Commercial incorporates a number of business and fleet-specific features. Business facing reporting software includes reservation management, usage reporting, maintenance management, AI analytics, energy station management, and payment/billing systems for end users such as scooter-share riders.

KYMCO also provides app services through Ionex Commercial that include infrastructure monitoring, battery shipment/tracking, maintenance support staff apps and Ionex electric scooter apps for end users.

The potential impact of Ionex Commercial

There are currently over 150 million scooters roaming the streets worldwide. Of those, 5 million are commercial vehicles. Additionally, commercial scooters travel 7 times farther on average and are replaced twice as frequently, as compared to privately owned scooters.

Due to these factors, commercial scooters end up contributing to around 20% of the total energy consumption of scooters worldwide.

This represents an important opportunity to reduce global energy usage in the transportation industry. As explained by KYMCO Chairman Allen Ko:

“Unlike consumer vehicles, often times the procurement of entire fleets of commercial vehicles is managed by just a few business decision makers. Hence, a conversion of even a small number of businesses to ‘go electric’ has the potential to make a big impact on the environment”

Ionex Commercial makes it simple to go electric

The beauty of the Ionex Commercial solution is how easy it is to implement a commercial fleet of electric scooters for a wide variety of businesses. In addition to providing the hardware and software solutions, Ionex Commercial also offers engineering services to convert existing fleets and facilities to work with the Ionex Commercial platform.

The system can also be adopted by companies that already use gas-powered scooters, such as delivery and cargo companies that operate in crowded urban centers and rely on quick, nimble scooters. As more and more cities begin closing urban areas to gas-powered vehicles, Ionex Commercial could help businesses return scooters to their operations by providing a zero-emission alternative that simply works better than older gas scooters.

As Chairman Ko put it:

“At last, there is a complete EV turnkey solution that can fundamentally transform urban commercial transportation worldwide.”

Electrek’s Take

I don’t say this lightly, but it is hard to overstate the importance of KYMCO’s announcement today of Ionex Commercial.

Electric scooters have the potential to become an incredibly important part of the commercial vehicle landscape. They are penetrating nearly every aspect of commercial uses. Delivery companies are already using them across Europe and Asia. Electric scooter shares are popping up in the United States. Companies are employing electric scooters on their campuses. The world is waking up to the usefulness of the agile little two-wheeled EVs.

Electric scooters have a host of advantages over their noisy and dirty gas-powered brethren, and KYMCO’s Ionex Commercial is finally making it easy for businesses and governments to realize those advantages. Plus, as the largest scooter manufacturer in Taiwan, KYMCO has the resources at its disposal to provide electric scooters on a massive scale – a scale that can actually achieve global effects.

By creating a complete solution that combines the electric scooters, swappable batteries, charging stations and an impressive suite of logistics and management software, KYMCO has built an entire solution wrapped in a bow. Any company that uses gas-powered scooters in any way can easily convert their fleet to electric scooters using the Ionex Commercial platform. That means millions of gas-powered scooters can be taken off the road for good.

In fact, if you own a business that uses scooters, then wake up. This. Is. Your. Chance.

The whole world is going electric. It’s happening across every transportation market. Don’t miss it.

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