In Part 2 of my discussion with Adam Black of Cycling Batteries, we talk about how innovations in fast charging, battery safety, and business models for ebikes can transform the global market. You can read the entire interview here.

Lakis: Tell me more about how the charger and battery work together.

Adam: We have invented a machine. We call it the Combo – because everybody likes a combination deal. Think of it like a cell phone and its charger. One end plugs into the bike. The other end, when you run out of power, plugs into any socket. In 12 minutes, you’ve got all the range you need. The Combo fits inside the bike, but if you’re not near an external power point, you can pick up the Combo – it’s the size of about a 20cm by 15cm little plastic Pelican case – walk into a Starbucks, plug it into the wall, drink your coffee, and 12 minutes later you’ve got all the power you need. You take your little Combo, put it back on your bike, and have a nice day.

That’s our first product. It doesn’t need an app to work – it’s very simple, like your phone and a charger. You plug it in, the green light comes on, you go. When it runs out, you charge it again.

That’s how we start, because that system doesn’t need software development. All we need to do is get the certification on the battery, which takes us eight weeks once we get the funding. We’ve already got a thousand people who want them.

The second stage, which works better for a lot of people, is the FaZtBatt. You leave the charger at home or put a charger in a cafe. Our system with the app – which we’re developing – turns the battery into a cell phone in the sense that we can remotely control it, the same way a cell phone company does.

You know how if you forget to pay your phone subscription, you get a little note saying your phone’s out of use, pay up – and then 20 minutes later your phone is working? They’re remotely controlling your access because you haven’t paid. Some people might think that’s a bit unfair, but it’s not – it’s extremely generous, because this system enables anybody to afford a $1,000 piece of equipment for around $20 a month.

Our system works the same way. By creating the ability for us to remotely switch off the battery – which we also do for safety reasons – we get all the data 20 times a day from the battery and assess it for safety and redundancy. And in the unfortunate case that somebody forgets to pay, we send them a couple of notices. If they forget, then when they come to recharge, they get a little note saying, “By the way, Lakis, you didn’t pay your subscription fee. Here’s a link. Pay it now to charge your battery.”

Lakis: I see. So essentially, you’re leasing the batteries and the chargers.

Adam: It’s more like rent-to-own.

And it gets better. A bike is no good without a battery, right? Because we’re remotely controlling the battery, suddenly we’ve got complete control of the bike through the app. So we can sell a bike for the production cost. People can always throw our battery away and use a different battery – it’s an edge case – but we’re not going to lose out.

Lakis: And there’s no special charging equipment required? You don’t have to have a particular outlet or anything like that?

Adam: No, no. Our chargers work with standard outlets. They draw about the same as a kettle – you can plug it in anywhere. It works on 240 volts or 110 volts. Traditionally, chargers are big and heavy – you see them for cars. This is one of the secrets of our technology. We’ve developed this super-intelligent charger specifically to charge these FaZtBatts really quickly in a lightweight, small system. It has a thermostatic fan control that takes the excess heat from the charger and warms up the battery, which actually makes the battery perform better. The whole system is beautifully integrated.

Lakis: Tell me a little bit about fire safety. I’m reading articles about delivery riders in New York City and people are worried about these bikes and the off-market batteries.

Adam: Let me tell you about our revolution in safety. Completely turning everything upside down.

New York got very upset about battery fires because they have a lot of cheap Arrow Bikes with what is called a Quicksilver Arrow battery. These batteries are made very cheaply with poor components and what they call passive monitoring, passive balancing.

Passive battery management – which is what’s in 99% of all device batteries – is fundamentally dangerous because it locks the stable door after the horse has bolted. The battery explodes, and then it sends you a message saying, “By the way, we have a problem.” A little bit too late.

Active balancing is what we do. We define our FaZtBatts in this manner and in this order: they are the safest, smartest, and fastest charging. Not the fastest charging that happens to be smart and safe. Safety comes first. We’re going to be the Volvo of e-bike batteries.

We use super high-quality, verified, and certified cells. About 60% of all batteries made don’t even use certified cells – these are the ones that blow up. Second, we have the best active battery management in the world that’s continually sending our home base comparative performance data about every single battery in the system. We do all sorts of clever AI to flag any batteries that aren’t performing proactively. So you may have got a battery from us last week, Lakis, and then something comes up in our software saying your battery’s cell number four is acting erratically compared to 30,000 other batteries out there. This one ain’t good. Hey, Lakis, we’re sending you a new battery – don’t use your current one until you get it.

Third, we’ve invented a fireproof battery housing. We are quite confident this battery housing is so effective that we can literally put the battery in a fire and it won’t explode. We have several other safety features as well, but one of the most critical ones is the cell chemistry. A lot of cheap, dangerous cells are made for one or two dollars each. One of the best ways to stop cell explosions is to use better cells.

All the bike companies phone up the battery companies and say, “make me the cheapest battery you can that’s this size. I don’t care about safety, make it cheap.” And that’s how most e-bike companies work. Never in history, according to my knowledge, has any e-bike company said: “Hey, Mr. Battery Company, why don’t you make a really innovative battery that charges faster, is infinitely safer, and a hell of a lot smarter than our current batteries? And even though it costs more, come up with a really good business model to make it more affordable?” No CEO of any e-bike company has said that. We’re now getting those calls.

Our pay-as-you-go system delivers perfectly composed, super-safe, fast-charging batteries, and when the chemistry in the battery dies (within about two years of continuous use), we replace the power module. We send you a recycled cardboard box with a new power pack and instructions on a QR code. You swap it out yourself or take it to the local bike shop – we’ll give you a QR code to find a local bike shop in five minutes. You keep the new module and send the old one it back, and we upcycle it.

And it doesn’t cost you $700 for a new battery. It costs you $25 a month, with a guarantee: if you ever have a battery problem, we’ll replace it. If it ever breaks down, we’ll fix it. You get infinite-range transport. You’re constantly getting the best in the business. And if you want to take a holiday, fine – you can pause. You can’t do that with any other battery in the world. Pay as you go. We deliver affordability to the underserved and everyone else.

Our batteries also have a locator system. We know where every battery is. And if you try to open the battery to take the locator system out, the battery stops performing and sends you a message saying, “Please don’t open the battery – it’s dangerous.” This system enables us to theoretically reclaim the battery or the bike from somebody who stopped paying. We’re the only battery company in the world that sells almost 100% guaranteed e-bike battery insurance.

Say you’re a delivery rider, you get mugged, your bike’s stolen, you pick up your phone, go to the FaZtBatt app, press “my bike has been stolen.” Our system can track where the battery is being driven and where it ends up. Because it’s a battery on an e-bike, chances are it’s going to be at ground level – not on the 20th story of an apartment. In 90% of cases, we can locate the battery and reclaim it. But what we do is we send a policeman and a video crew out to the guy who stole the bike and offer him an opportunity: we arrest him, or he makes a video here with the cameraman telling people why you shouldn’t steal a FaZtBatt. Once we get three or four of those videos out there, the likelihood of thieves stealing a FaZtBatts versus any other e-bike battery – it’s going to be the other one. As a result, for $5 a month, we can sell e-bike battery insurance to people and guarantee that they get either their e-bike and battery back or an alternative. Think about it. In New York alone, there are 65,000 delivery riders, $5 a month. Do the maths.

Lakis: So that leads to the next question: where is the business now? What’s your status?

Adam: We’re about to raise $1.5 million to get our products and services through certification and into the industry. And that will be followed by a future tranche of probably around $5 million, which will allow us to do a multi-nation expansion plus further development of the solar road system.

The key to our company really taking off is about the first hundred users. First hundred users, happy videos of people charging in cafes. It’s a new thing – everybody’s going to want to join in. Our limiting factor at the moment is basically myself and our team presenting our deck and our new website and getting out there, pitching people. We need money from investors, and we need a scaling CFO – that’s the only C-level executive we really need that we don’t have. As we expand, we’ll get an operations person in because I can’t do everything. I do the design as well. As we grow, those responsibilities will fall to other people while I charge ahead as the visionary with the mission.

Lakis: So, are you in prototype stage now or production?

Adam: Everything is prototype, but it’s what they call TRL [Technology Readiness Level] 9. The TRL scale was developed by NASA to measure how close a product is to entering the market. TRL 1 is: “I’ve got a bright idea.” When you get to TRL 8, you have a product that’s been tested and used extensively and is ready for production, but doesn’t have the official certification yet. When it goes through official certification, some clever bugger is going to say, oh, the lock on your battery case needs to be three PSI stronger. All that fiddling around is what we need to do to get it into production. But literally, if we had the money tomorrow, these things would be on the streets within a few months.

Thanks for reading!

If you’re working on e-mobility, I’d love to hear your perspective. If you found this conversation valuable, please share it with anyone who might be interested.