Project description
A new way to get around town
It has never before been easier, faster, greener or more energy efficient to make our way around a city. From traditional bikes to electric bikes and from electric scooters to the electric monowheels, daily journeys are becoming increasingly intermodal. Heading along this path, the EU-funded LEONARDO project is developing a new microvehicle. By taking the best features of the monowheel and the scooter, it will consolidate features based on users’ needs and safety regulations. The redesign activity will also consider the electrical and electronic aspects. The project plans to test a fleet of these new vehicles in four European cities. The microvehicles will be tested by hundreds of users on a rotating basis.
Objective
The objectives of LEONARDO are:
1) to develop a new microvehicle based on the smart fusion of the concepts of monowheel and scooter. The monowheel and the scooter have the best characteristics to be used as a means of daily transport and to fully exploit the intermodality. The new microvehicle will take the best features of these two vehicles and eliminate the disadvantages, obtaining a silent, clean, energy efficient and safe vehicle, as well as attractive and affordable to the public so that the barriers for adopting it are minimized. The development includes a) the consolidation of already outlined conpects, through analysis of functionality and comparison with existing vehicles, on the basis of an extensive analysis of user's needs and safety and regulamentary aspects b) structural and electrical / electronic design c) in-house testing
2) to do an extensive demonstration and re-design activity. The vehicle will be tested in a real environment in 5 European cities: Rome, Palermo, Eilat and 2 others that will be identified with a tender. In these demonstration tests, a fleet of vehicle will be tested for free by hundreds of users, on a rotating basis. Each vehicle can be used in stand alone mode or in battery sharing mode, through a system already developed by UNIFI, made available for the project. Operating data will be automatically collected through a platform and users will be asked to give feedback weekly. The pilot in Rome and Palermo will start with 50 vehicles and will be used for a revision and re-design process, to arrive up to a TRL 7. Afterwards, the other pilots will start, in sequence, for 3 months in each city, in which 100 vehicles will be tested. These tests will be used to refine the vehicle up to the TRL8-9 and to do a physical demonstration of the technical and economic feasibility. During the pilots, pre-orders will be accepted. A detailed exploitation strategy and a draft business plan for the vehicle will be draft with the data collected.
Fields of science
Keywords
Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
IA - Innovation actionCoordinator
50121 Florence
Italy