It’s no longer news that bicycles are making a comeback in the urban mobility space. However, traditional bikes surely do not fit into anyone’s vision of the future of urban mobility. Among other problems, they could prove quite hard to pedal uphill and offer little to zero protection from the weather or crashes. While electric vehicles seamlessly solve the former problem, inventors are still figuring out ways to address the latter. Enter the Podbike – the true mobility device for the future.
Design and features
The Podbike velomobile is a daring attempt to bridge the gap between electric bikes and cars without compromising sustainability. The ‘pod’ nomenclature is quite literal as the driver appears to be enclosed in a pod. However, the ‘bike’ suffix seems to be slightly off, since the vehicle is a four-wheeler in the real sense.
Despite the four wheels, Podbike is compact enough to fit into tiny spaces, and it’s just as easy to enter and exit as a regular bike. The vehicle is partly battery-powered and partly human-powered. When cycled like a regular bike, Podbike gives you the same light exercise as an electric bike. However, there are no gears or greasy chains that could make bikes slightly challenging or unpleasant to ride.
Effortless parking and low footprint
With Podbike, you no longer have to settle for a parking space that’s many miles away from your destination. Unlike traditional bikes, the Podbike can reverse, and its parking footprint is much lower than any four-wheeler you can find. This is owed to the unique parking technology that raises the vehicle and allows it to rest on only the rear wheels. According to the manufacturers, eight Podbikes can fit in a single car parking space!
Rider comfort and safety
Podbike’s four wheels guarantee better stability and rider comfort. The vehicle is equipped with lights and indicators on both sides, making it easier to spot and facilitating the safety of the rider and other road users. The manufacturers also claim that Podbike has energy-absorbing crush zones that can minimize impact during a crash. Plus, there’s roll-over protection and an optional seat belt for riders.
Extra cargo or child seat
Podbike is ideally designed to seat only the rider, but there’s enough space to either accommodate a child or some extra load. This space comes in handy when going grocery shopping or going out with a child.
Futuristic design
The manufacturers envision a future dominated by driverless cars, and they have designed Podbike to become a part of this future. According to them, future Podbikes will come with self-parking and self-charging features, alongside many other features that facilitate autonomy.
Pricing info
Podbike is currently available for pre-order via their official website. The manufacturers estimate the initial price for a standard model (without any optionals) to be approx. USD $5,600 (plus local sales tax and shipment costs). The manufacturers hope to start the first series of production in the first quarter of 2021.
Startup
A startup or start-up is a company or project undertaken by an entrepreneur to seek, develop, and validate a scalable business model. While entrepreneurship refers to all new businesses, including self-employment and businesses that never intend to become registered, startups refer to new businesses that intend to grow large beyond the solo founder. At the beginning, startups face high uncertainty and have high rates of failure, but a minority of them do go on to be successful and influential. Some startups become unicorns; that is privately held startup companies valued at over US$1 billion.
Actions
Startups typically begin by a founder (solo-founder) or co-founders who have a way to solve a problem. The founder of a startup will begin market validation by problem interview, solution interview, and building a minimum viable product (MVP), i.e. a prototype, to develop and validate their business models. The startup process can take a long period of time (by some estimates, three years or longer), and hence sustaining effort is required. Over the long term, sustaining effort is especially challenging because of the high failure rates and uncertain outcomes. Having a business plan in place outlines what to do and how to plan and achieve an idea in the future. Typically, these plans outline the first 3 to 5 years of your business strategy.
Design principles
Models behind startups presenting as ventures are usually associated with design science. Design science uses design principles considered to be a coherent set of normative ideas and propositions to design and construct the company's backbone. For example, one of the initial design principles is "affordable loss".
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