It seems that the scooter industry cannot quite decide how many wheels they need. For decades, scooters have had two wheels. Then some manufacturers added an extra wheel at the front. As years passed by, these three-wheelers grew another wheel, only this time at the rear. This evolution process gave birth to the now known Qooder scooter – the brainchild of Lucio Marabese, project designer at a Swiss company called Quadro. Qooder is the latest in a line of tilting 3- and 4-wheelers designed by Lucio, the early ones being the Yamaha Tesseract and Piaggio MP3.
Capabilities
Why would anyone need a scooter with four wheels? Well, grip, lots of grip. On the tarmac roads, the four wheels provide you with twice as much adhesion. With other four-wheeled scooters, it is almost impossible to lean over, making it hard to corner at high speeds. The Swiss-designed Qooder has built-in hydraulic tilt system (HTS) that allows all four wheels to make the tilt at the same time. As you bounce over speeding bumps, lean into bends, or rush over potholes, each wheel remains gripped on the road. You can even ride down sideways on a flight of steps and remain comfortable on the scooter.
If you have ridden a bike at speed, you will know that at times you can lean over so far into sharp corners you end up grazing your knee. The interesting thing about the Qooder is that you can tilt it even at very low speeds. It can lean up to 45 degrees at crawling speeds. You will probably fall off it before it falls over.
It can take a while to get used to the scooter. At times people tend to forget to lean and turn at the same time, but with a test drive and practice, you will get the hang of it.
Engine Specifications
The Qooder features a dynamic, centrally placed 399 cc engine with 32.5 HP and integrated differential.
The Design
With its hornet-like design, the Qooder resembles a jet ski that is made for the road. Its sturdy body and large seat make your ride comfortable. The flat platform and step-through frame gives you an easy hop on. You no longer have to worry about damaging your clothes; you can ride it in your office skirt or that power suit and even heels. The scooter also has a handy locker on the back for your helmet.
Updated 2nd Jan, 2021: The Qooder comes in several color options: Glossy Snow white, Glossy Swiss red, Matte Ceresio blue, Matte Titanium grey, and Matte Raw black. You can get the Qooder for approx. 11,490 Euros, which includes VAT but excludes delivery, preparation and registration. For more information, visit the Qooder website.
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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