Meeting of the Minds: Takeaways for SONDORS Network
The Meeting of the Minds took place in Sacramento November 27–29. This conference was a public directed effort to “Spotlight innovations in Smart and Sustainable Cities”. As a representative of the SONDORS Network, the focus was on the related sections: Electric Vehicles and Rideshares — the conference also covered topics such as city infrastructure, public-private, partnerships, flooding, nightlife, blockchain etc.
A bit about SONDORS before we break down 5 key takeaways from the conference.
SONDORS is a disruptive manufacturing venture company that started with its nationally recognized electric bike brand in Malibu, CA. It has sold more than 35K electric bikes since it’s inception in 2015, has a growing community of more than 65K individuals across their channels, has sold in more than 42 countries, with a selection of electric bikes starting at $899. The Founder, Storm Sondors, builds on this success with his disruptive vision to evolve how city dwellers do transportation — by offering an access & ownership model for electric vehicles.
Customers are attracted by the convenience of on-demand access, the prospect of financial savings and the potential for it to improve their quality of life. — World Economic Forum
This model is a two-sided marketplace that supports the future economy of shared assets and revenue streams: one where SONDORS Owners can pay off their vehicle through carsharing, and where SONDORS Network participants get convenient access to the sophisticated commuter vehicle.
Current production vehicles are not feasible for car sharing, as they represent the past, not the future. Besides being expensive, they also can not survive the beating cars take when they are being passed from one driver to another every couple of hours. — Storm Sondors, CEO of SONDORS Network
TAKEAWAY 1: FUEL — Electric Charging Stations are the driver for Electric Vehicle adoption.
A barrier to adoption of electric vehicles is the convenience of fueling — aka charging. City Infrastructure’s slow adoption requires partnership & planning. In Sacramento, the California State Capital, offers over 450 electric vehicle charging stations, compared to 800+ in San Francisco. Overall, Electrify America is leading the way in an effort to drive supply through installation of 350kW chargers (which at it’s current state does not apply to the latest EV technology; however places the groundwork necessary to support the EV future). When making the comparison of fueling across gas & electric, John Ewbank draws the connection that a 750kW would put our waiting time at approximately the same as fueling at a gas store — 8minutes. This is a bit over 2x the power installed by Electrify America in Northern California.
TAKEAWAY 2: SPACE — Parking is a key constraint — parking infrastructure upgrades and permits facilitate space management.
The City of Sacramento is building an application to help support parking management during large events — SACPark, catchy title! This effort is focused on supporting the events industry by facilitating parking management through pre-arrival car parking reservations in nearby facilities — the goal here is to manage congestion away from major streets and reduce leave time.
Gigcarshare partners with the City of Sacramento to provide parking permits at net-revenue. From an operational perspective, carshare (and bikeshare) companies have notoriously found difficulty with the logistical aspects in supplying vehicles in areas to meet demand — generally hiring vans (such as CitiBike in NYC, or JUMP Bikes in Sacramento), or incentivizing users to bring vehicles to charging stations (such as Lime Bikes in Venice Beach).
TAKEAWAY 3: CITIES-Low Density Cities will require leapfrogging solutions to compensate for less resources.
Speaking with a representative from Reno, NV — I affirmed the intuition that their low population density reflected a vicious cycle of lower means of funding and older technologies. Today their technology lags behind Sacramanto, San Francisco, and other high density cities and they are bogged down by concerns around revitalizing a city with derelict and underutilized infrastructure at the city center. Given Sacramento’s density, it is a prime location for shared services like bikes, and cars.
TAKEAWAY 4: FUNDING-Public Funding Mechanisms support city partnership and adoption.
Electrify America is a nonprofit effort to bring electric vehicles to America. Through an auction process, Electrify America (EA) chose Gigshare for the Sacramento region (in addition to JUMP Bikes in the electric bike category). In this partnership, Gigshare receives close partnership with the City of Sacramento and gains first insight on deliberations at the city level. Now, although first & supported through EA, Sacramento still sees two competitors in the region, Zipcar and Evoy. The distinguishing factors:
- Envoy’s focus on institutional partnerships (apartment complexes, workplaces, and hotels). Daily Rate: 70
- Zipcar’s wide-selection of vehicles (electric or not) that have a designated parking spaces. Daily Rate: $79
- Gig carshare offers one type of electric vehicle per region with keyless entry, a bike rack, and a city permit for flexible parking. Daily rate: $85
SONDORS plans to offer it’s compact electric autocycle at a daily rate of $30 in a P2P fashion.
TAKEAWAY 5: MOVEMENT-City Infrastructure is moving towards IoT integration to provide better city decision making
Verizon was a key sponsor to the conference. They promoted their surveillance products that are documenting movement from cellphones (Traffic Data Sources), traffic lights (Intelligent Traffic Management), and parking (Parking Optimization). At&t was also in attendance, being two institutions implementing data services. This is a valuable insight in that city data is valuable for public decision making.
CARS: When on average, a car sits idle 95% of the time and the average owner spends $8k a year on maintenance, revenue streams to re-engineer this asset infamous for it’s high depreciation come to mind. Cars become an option to facilitate aggregates of data in movement.
SONDORS is introducing a blend of vehicle re-engineering with the carshare market through its SONDORS Network effort. Visit sondors.network to follow the build.
