Ignition Labs green accelerator program<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
In addition to intensive mentoring and $25,000 in seed capital, teams have the opportunity to participate in a road show in Australia and the United States, including at SXSW Eco in Texas.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are some large costly projects, such as wind power, that are hard to find money for in Australia,\u201d explains Stead.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cBut there are now more and more businesses with lean start-up principles in the clean tech space, in a variety of areas. They can build their businesses and test them quickly. which is attractive for investors.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s more than just renewable energy, it\u2019s energy efficiency buildings, transport and sustainability. There\u2019s a definite spike in start-up activity in these areas.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
So which start-ups are at the cutting edge of this clean tech revolution?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We spoke to four of the Ignition Labs participants to find out what ideas they are working on and how they hope to make them mainstream business successes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Below are two of the businesses \u2013 Chunk Design and Open Shed. We\u2019ll bring you the other two profiles tomorrow, so stay tuned.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
1. Will Wansey<\/h2>\n
<\/p>\n
Business:<\/b> Chunk Design<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Website:<\/b> www.chunkdesign.com.au<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Concept:<\/b> Creating the world\u2019s first mass-market electric \u2018postie\u2019 motorbike<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Who\u2019s behind the business then, Will?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There\u2019s Hugh Worthington, who is an industrial designer. We run Chunk Industries together. There\u2019s also Sean Foley, who is the finance guy.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
At Chunk Industries, we\u2019ve worked on a variety of products, but this is our first large-scale project. We are focusing all our efforts on the postie bikes.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Why postie bikes?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We initially wanted to build electric Beetles, to create something new and cool. But Sean is into old bikes and Vespas and convinced us to start on something small and manageable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There\u2019s more of an issue with available parts with Vespas, so we moved to postie bikes. They are easy, cheap and it\u2019s simple to get the parts.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve worked on making an electric postie bike for the past year, ever since we got a $20,000 grant through the Big Green Idea, which is a British Council scheme.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
They liked the fact that it was focused in the area of urban sustainability and provided clean, short-range transport for people in cities.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Everything then took off when we were chosen by Ignition Labs. We\u2019re focusing on it more as a business now and making sure that we get a great product to market.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How have you gone so far?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It\u2019s gone pretty well. We\u2019ve built three or four prototypes and hit a few dead ends with components but we hit the nail on the head with a small lightweight frame that doesn\u2019t require huge batteries.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We\u2019ve devised a system where the transmission is at a much lower current, so that the bike isn\u2019t weighed down by a heavy battery.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It has a much better performance with a lower power than what we started with. It\u2019s a really big solution for this bike.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Won\u2019t there be an issue with recharging the bikes every five minutes?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
That\u2019s exactly the problem we faced. You have a high performance bike but you get 15 minutes run time before it needs to be recharged, which isn\u2019t acceptable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The higher spec the bike, the heavier the batteries. It\u2019s a vicious cycle. We\u2019ve stripped it back as much as possible, made it very minimal and given it a cool, retro look.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
It can now run for about an hour or 50km on one pack. We\u2019re confident we\u2019ve cracked the problem of getting a low-cost battery that has a bit of range. It\u2019s taken a lot of work, but we\u2019re very happy with it.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Why does the public at large need this, exactly?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We\u2019re positioning this right at the target market of inner-city urban dwellers. The components are cheap so we\u2019ll keep the price point down below $4,000.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are two main drivers towards e-bikes \u2013 the first is economics. In China, in certain areas you can only ride electric bikes, by law. That\u2019s a huge market.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The second is the people who want low cost short-range travel within cities. The sustainability part is a nice add-on, but people are mainly attracted by the price.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
How has Ignition Labs helped you?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The mentorship and advice has been great.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We were looking for good advice once we got out of university, so it was such a decision to apply for the program. It\u2019s been running for three weeks and I\u2019ve never been so busy. It\u2019s been full on.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We focused the pitch on the market potential \u2013 which is about $6 billion worldwide this year and expanding. The market is there and it\u2019s growing.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
What are your future plans?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We do have other projects that we can apply this innovation to, such as scooters, but at the moment we are focusing on getting the postie bikes right.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Our goal is to have amazing-looking postie bikes ready by the end of September to take to the Eco SXSW Festival, with the other Ignition Labs participants.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We have no firm sales targets. The game plan is to sell them online ourselves and keep it as close to home as possible. At a certain point, there\u2019s no affordable alternative but to go to China for manufacturing, but we want to do things well before we get bigger.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
There are a lot of challenges in general with electric vehicles in Australia. Cost is a big one \u2013 we don\u2019t have the same incentives as the US or Europe, such as tax breaks and exemptions from toll roads.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
We are a bit behind in Australia, but there are lots of good companies working on solutions here and I think that we have customers here that want them.<\/p>\n
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