When Olivier van Hardenbroek and Thomas Streitberg were pursuing their Executive MBA at INSEAD in Singapore, they came up with the idea of MO Batteries, a company providing fleet charging solutions for electric bikes in Southeast Asia (SEA).
Olivier has a background as a banker and has extensive experience in operations management and business development, and Tom started his career as a lawyer. He later also delved into the banking industry as an investment banker before becoming an entrepreneur and angel investor.
They later spoke to Paul Booey and Greg Willis about their business idea, eventually joining them as co-founders of MO Battery.
Unlike Olivier and Tom, they both have some experience in the electric vehicle (EV) space. Greg has spent most of his career in the motorcycle industry. Most recently, he was the Managing Director of Harley-Davidson in Japan and was responsible for launching Harley-Davidson’s Livewire electric bikes in Southeast Asia.
Paul, on the other hand, is a scientist and inventor who specializes in complex optimization problems. In a recent project, he worked with the Singapore government on the electrification of the public bus network and has received three patents.
Responding to Climate Change with EVs
“MO was founded on the desire to find a quick and practical way. [to] Reduce carbon emissions [and] Address climate change. The transition from gasoline to EVs meets these criteria,” he said Thomas.
“So when we started looking at the EV landscape, we quickly realized that most EV solutions are based on safely accessible private vehicles and reliable power supplies. , this is a Tesla model, designed for the U.S., but that’s not how shipping works in most of Southeast Asia.”
About 80% of SEA households rely on motorbikes as part of their transportation. In total, about 230 million motorbikes traverse the roads in the region, Thomas said.
Despite this staggering number, it turns out that no one is seriously thinking about how to electrify all these bikes. This has led people across Southeast Asia to find ways to convert petrol-powered bikes to electric bikes in a quick, easy, and cost-effective manner.
Instead of manufacturing EVs and batteries, MO Batteries works with corporate customers to identify the best electric motorcycles on the market to suit their fleet needs. Design, build and manage fleet charging operations in a fully optimized manner using proprietary software.
Fully optimized means a design that uses the least number of motorcycles, the least amount of charging infrastructure, and the least amount of electrical power to meet fleet demand. Reduce the overall cost of acquiring and operating a fleet by reducing all aspects of the fleet.
As a result, clients can receive a zero-emission EV bike fleet at a price equal to or lower than their existing petrol fleet. We make it easier for enterprise fleet operators to go green by providing a single, comprehensive and cost-effective solution to the challenge of transitioning to EVs.
– Thomas Streitberg, co-founder of MO Batteries
electric bike battery replacement
But the biggest complaints people have when adopting EVs are concerns about cost and range.
“People are reluctant about the high initial cost of EVs and are concerned about the risk of dead batteries,” said Thomas, adding that MOs are specifically designed to address both of these issues. I added that there are
The company’s fully optimized fleet solutions help reduce operating costs for EV fleets, making them equal to or lower than gasoline-powered fleets.
In addition, its software manages fleets to ensure that charged batteries are always available when needed. This is also where battery replacement services can help address range anxiety.
The MO will charge the batteries at the central charging facility, deliver them to the client and store them at the swap station. The client’s driver swaps charged and discharged batteries as needed.
The MO collects the discharged battery and returns it to the charging facility and the cycle begins again.
– Thomas Streitberg, co-founder of MO Batteries
The fee structure is also simple. We charge a fixed monthly fee for each e-bike, so customers have access to the e-bike, battery, and management software.
“This is attractive because it means customers don’t have to pay to buy electric bikes, batteries, or have charging equipment installed and operated on site,” says Thomas. says.
Additionally, the key value of battery replacement is no downtime or recharging. Replacing a discharged battery with a fully charged battery eliminates the need to wait for the battery to recharge.
Local clients include Singpost, DHL, Ninja Van and Prosegur. In October, MO Batteries also signed an expanded deal with Grab to conduct his four-month trial of electric motorcycles using MO’s system in Singapore.
In particular, Grab’s delivery partners use electric motorcycles and battery swaps provided by MO to deliver food. Trials on Grab are expected to begin in the first quarter of 2023.
MO Batteries has been awarded a sandbox pilot by the LTA
MO Battery was on the verge of launching when COVID-19 struck, but the pandemic halted plans for two years.
“In some ways, this was a hidden blessing as it gave us the opportunity to really develop our tech stack, making our ground offering much stronger,” said Thomas.
As a testament to that, MO Batteries was awarded a sandbox pilot by the Department of Motor Vehicles in September to attempt a motorcycle EV battery swap. This makes the company one of his two companies approved to provide battery replacement services in Singapore.
Thomas believes this will be an important milestone for the company and a strong recognition of its safety and operational strengths.
Singapore is its second market after Vietnam, and the company plans to expand to Malaysia in early 2023.
Singapore is where we develop our technology. It’s a small market, but it’s very important to us as a place to do our cutting-edge development work. By contrast, Vietnam is Southeast Asia’s largest motorcycle market after Indonesia, and perhaps the most advanced in terms of EV adoption.
Our goal is to grow fast, so we need to go where the vehicle is. Malaysia is halfway between these two extremes. It’s a much bigger market than Singapore, giving us the opportunity to expand our new ideas before entering the huge Vietnam market.
– Thomas Streitberg, co-founder of MO Batteries
Outside the core market, the expansion of MO batteries is based on a “follow the customer model”. They work with multinational companies, and after a successful deployment in one country, these companies ask them to deploy their solutions in other countries where they operate.
“We just want it to be easy to electrify,” Thomas said sarcastically. “In practice, our plan over the next three to five years is to directly manage tens of thousands of vehicles across the SEA and apply our software and charging solutions to hundreds of thousands, if not millions. It is to be installed and operated in a single electric vehicle.”
The fact that the government will pass a new law regulating EV charging next year will give a boost to Singapore’s entire EV ecosystem and bring about major changes to the traditional automotive industry.
“Fuel retailers must adapt [and] Maintenance and service providers will need upskilling. The task of building a charging infrastructure is enormous, [so] Power grids need to be strengthened to meet the massive increase in power demand. There are all sorts of opportunities to be part of a truly booming industry,” he summed up.
Main image credit: MO Battery
