What better partner for a Cowboy than a Prancing Horse?
The Agnelli family’s Exor holding company is best known as the owner of Ferrari, the four-wheeled supercar with the stallion logo.
Now, it has joined the race to invest in e-bikes with Belgian e-bike start-up Cowboy, as the two-wheeled electric commuter market shifts up a gear.
Photo: AFP
The electric bike market was already a good prospect: Industry figures show that 3 million were sold in Europe last year, one-quarter more than in 2018.
Yet a number of factors have come together this year to boost the Cowboy in Belgium, which was never as bike-friendly as the neighboring Netherlands.
As the country tackles the COVID-19 crisis, some commuters are shunning public transport, and the city of Brussels, once jammed by endless traffic jams, is transforming itself to exit the lockdown with vastly more bike lanes.
Speed limits have been cut to 30kph across 85 percent of the city, despite groans of motorists’ groups, and pedal power is up.
“So we really saw a spike, really an explosion in demand. Between January and mid-June, our sales went up three times — tripled in six months,” Cowboy founder and chief executive officer Adrien Roose said.
Five investors have joined the young firm, the biggest being Exor Seeds, a venture capital arm of a company that owns Ferrari and Juventus soccer club.
“We’re super happy to be working with them and we’re hoping to find synergies, especially in the industrial process,” Roose said.
Belgium is more hilly than low-lying Holland, and Brussels’ cobbled streets can be hard to navigate on a push bike, but the Cowboy’s detachable lithium-ion battery gives the bike a power-assisted 70km range.
Those intrigued by the concept can book a test ride at the firm’s flagship store — more like a sleek consumer tech showroom than an oily bike workshop.
Along with Dutch rivals Vanmoof and France’s Angell, Cowboy is trying to tempt a new generation of riders with bikes designed as electric from the wheels up, rather than converted pedal bikes.
Lighter batteries and smaller motors are not the only innovations: The Cowboy is digitally connected to its user — a useful security measure for a vehicle that costs more than 2,000 euros (US$2,356).
“People who buy an electric bike are rightly afraid of having their bike stolen. We’re not going to create a stronger lock than the others, but we could reduce the risk of theft,” Roose said.
“If someone steals a Cowboy electric bike, it won’t be worth anything to him, because he won’t be able to turn it on. To turn it on, you need the application with your information: your login and password,” he said.
“Secondly, if someone moves your electric bike when it’s turned off, you’ll get a notification on your mobile app, notifying you that maybe your bike is being stolen, and you can track it in real time,” Roose said.
If that does not work, Cowboy sells bike insurance.
The domestic unit of the Chinese-owned, Dutch-headquartered chipmaker Nexperia BV will soon be able to produce semiconductors locally within China, according to two company sources. Nexperia is at the center of a global tug-of-war over critical semiconductor technology, with a Dutch court in February ordering a probe into alleged mismanagement at the company. The geopolitical tussle has disrupted supply chains, with some carmakers reportedly forced to cut production due to chip shortages. Local production would allow Nexperia’s domestic arm, Nexperia Semiconductors (China) Ltd (安世半導體中國), to bypass restrictions in place since October on the supply of silicon wafers — etched with tiny components to
Singapore-based ride-hailing and delivery giant Grab Holdings Ltd has applied for regulatory approval to acquire the Taiwan operations of Germany-based Delivery Hero SE's Foodpanda in a deal valued at about US$600 million. Grab submitted the filing to the Fair Trade Commission on Friday last week, with the transaction subject to regulatory review and approval, the company said in a statement yesterday. Its independent governance structure would help foster a healthy and competitive market in Taiwan if the deal is approved, Grab said. Grab, which is listed on the NASDAQ, said in the filing that US-based Uber Technologies Inc holds about 13 percent of
Taiwan is open to joining a global liquefied natural gas (LNG) program if one is created, but on the condition that countries provide delivery even in a scenario where there is a conflict with China, an energy department official said yesterday. While Taiwan’s priority is to have enough LNG at home, the nation is open to exploring potential strategic reserves in other countries such as Japan or South Korea, Energy Administration Deputy Director-General Chen Chung-hsien (陳崇憲) said. While the LNG market does not have a global reserve for emergencies like that of oil, the concept has been raised a few times —
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) yesterday received government approval to deploy its advanced 3-nanometer (3nm) process at its second fab currently under construction in Japan, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said in a news release. The ministry green-lit the plan for the facility in Kumamoto, which is scheduled to start installing equipment and come online in 2028 with a monthly production capacity of 15,000 12-inch wafers, the ministry said. The Department of Investment Review in June 2024 authorized a US$5.26 billion investment for the facility, slated to manufacture 6- to 12nm chips, significantly less advanced than 3nm process. At a meeting with
RSS