Periodic Reporting for period 2 - FUTrailer (Fully-equipped electric trailer supporting the transition towards sustainable city logistics)
Reporting period: 2021-02-01 to 2022-05-31
The increasing population in cities brings along a steep escalation of traffic congestion, accidents, pollution and health issues. With expanentially growing e-commerce, city logistics represents 30% of all urban traffic, accounts 80% of traffic jams in rush hours and is responsible for 25% of the urban transport-related CO2 emissions and up to 50% of other transport-related pollutants (PM, NOx etc.). Associated health outcomes range from respiratory diseases to cancer. Our product – an intelligent electric trailer for bicycles (FUTrailer) - sets the new standards for the e-mobility, enabling efficient and emission-free transportation of goods in urban areas. With the FUTrailer we aim to empower more people to minimize the use of cars in cities thus making a significant impact on de-congesting roads, improving air quality in urban areas and making cities more livable. Our ultimate goal is to reduce traffic congestion by 30% and air pollution by 40%, and to decrease the number of people suffering from noise pollution by 10%.
The core developments in mechanical design, electronics, software and control algorithm development have been carried out and successfully executed. This effort led to the development of two prototypes P1 and P2. Both assembled and tested in-house. DFM and DFA as well as lean production studies have been carried out to ensure smooth transition from prototyping to serial production. Several pilot projects have been completed with the current version of the e-trailer. Technical workshops and interviews with existing customers and new partners have been conducted to collect requirements for the FUTrailer development. A European patent on the core technology has been granted and an application for a second patent has been filed.
We aim to complete the development of the FUTrailer, turn into a scalable product and, thus, ensure a successful market launch by 2022. By 2026, we expect to have thousands of e-trailers on the road, replacing 622 million km of the van trips and saving more than 108,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions. At NÜWIEL, we aim to contribute to achieving the UN SD Goals (11, 13, 3) and enable a CO2-free city logistics in major urban centres by 2030.