Sharing connects

Savings of an e-scooter after three years compared to a combustion engine car.

The Challenge

No mobility revolution without digitalisation

Sharing economy: since the 2010s, the term has stood for a new, disruptive economic model driven by the growth of innovative digital platforms. The concept: sharing instead of buying. In the mobility sector in particular, new business models have emerged around the short-term rental of a vehicle.  

At the same time, mobility is increasingly being rethought, especially in urban areas: sustainability, efficiency and inclusion are the order of the day. Technological progress is essential. In particular, digital innovations such as the Internet of Things can help.

The Company

E-scooters made in Berlin

"Unique": This is the meaning of "unu" in Esperanto. The company sells electric scooters that travel at speeds of up to 45 km/h and have a range of more than 100 kilometres with two batteries.

The second generation of scooters will be available from 2019, enabling completely new usage models for the electric scooters thanks to full connectivity: all authorised users of a scooter can view information such as the scooter's location and charge status at any time via an app. If the scooter is moved without authorisation, a digital anti-theft alarm sounds. These features make the connected e-scooter suitable for families, shared flats or even hostels.

unu co-founder and CEO Pascal Blum points out: "From the start, we have digitised all our processes, including logistics and customer service. We don't have any brick-and-mortar stores and sell 100% via e-commerce. Networking the scooters is the next logical step. And because scooter sharing is very scalable, we can also support sharing providers or offer specific solutions for fleet managers as a next step".

The Solution

Innovative business model thanks to IoT

All these functions are controlled by the unu Brain, the scooter's telematics box. A Vodafone IoT SIM card is installed here, so the scooter is always online via Vodafone's mobile network - anywhere in the world. The IoT SIM cards are managed by Vodafone's Global Data Service Platform (GDSP).

The scooter's display, GPS-based navigation and all other on-board electronics are also connected via the Brain. Communication between the e-scooter and the unu cloud is, of course, encrypted.

"We chose Vodafone because the mobile operator had a convincing IoT solution, its network has an international footprint and the cost was also right," concludes Pascal Blum. unu is currently active in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and France and is in talks with partners in other countries. For Pascal Blum, this was one of the reasons for working with Vodafone: "Vodafone provides us with comprehensive support in the implementation of our digital and networked business model - internationally".

The scooter's display, GPS-based navigation and all other on-board electronics are also connected via the Brain. Communication between the e-scooter and the unu cloud is, of course, encrypted.

"We chose Vodafone because the mobile operator had a convincing IoT solution, its network has an international footprint and the cost was also right," concludes Pascal Blum. unu is currently active in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands and France and is in talks with partners in other countries. For Pascal Blum, this was one of the reasons for working with Vodafone: "Vodafone provides us with comprehensive support in the implementation of our digital and networked business model - internationally".

The Advantages

At a glance

Of course, the environmental aspect also plays a role with electric scooters: "With the German electricity mix and a mileage of 15,000 kilometres, which a scooter typically achieves after three years, an e-scooter saves between 2,000 and 3,000 kilograms of CO2 compared to a car with a combustion engine," says Blum. Thanks to the collaboration with Vodafone, he believes his company is well positioned for mobility trends such as electric motors, sharing and autonomy.

New technologies that change the way we live are being introduced at breakneck speed. But which ones have the potential to make the world a better place, and what are the risks? Thomas Schulz, journalist, Silicon Valley expert and author of the bestselling book "What Google Really Wants", talks about it.

Mr Schulz, we are familiar with examples from Silicon Valley such as Uber or Airbnb that have disrupted entire industries. Whether this is always to the benefit of people is controversial, to say the least. But can digitalisation also contribute to the well-being of society and the individual?

Thomas Schulz: This is obvious in the field of medicine, for example. No one would argue against the discovery of new cancer therapies, research into the prevention and treatment of diabetes, or the development of new tests for infectious diseases. Machine learning and the analysis of large amounts of data offer entirely new possibilities for detecting diseases at an early stage or treating them more effectively. For example, patients can contribute their genetic data to diagnosis.

Isn't the use of artificial intelligence and big data also risky, especially in this sensitive area?

Thomas Schulz: Of course there are always risks. If, for example, Google wants to set up a new medical platform and patient data is to be run on it, then Google suddenly has access to patient data. You have to look at that very carefully. On the other hand, there are a lot of start-ups in Silicon Valley, especially in the medical sector, that are mainly run by doctors. In this case, I don't see a big difference between such research being carried out at a university hospital in Germany or by a start-up founded by doctors in the US.

What role do sustainability and environmental protection play in Silicon Valley?

Thomas Schulz: That's quite interesting. After the turn of the millennium, clean technology was a big topic in Silicon Valley. However, it was hardly translated into business models, which is why this area was almost completely abandoned. This is now slowly changing again. Not least because Tesla has established itself as a pioneer in electric mobility, proving that there is money to be made in sustainability. There are now a number of start-ups in the field of new mobility models and, interestingly, an attempt to develop clean nuclear energy. Bill Gates, for example, is heavily involved in the latter.

When discussing the consequences of digitalisation, it's easy to end up talking about fundamental social issues or ideas like an unconditional basic income. But in Silicon Valley, that's seen as the devil's work, isn't it?

Thomas Schulz: Not at all! Universal basic income is also a big topic in Silicon Valley. There are even test projects, for example at the Y Combinator incubator. You can also see that robots and artificial intelligence are leading to shifts or even upheavals in the world of work. When jobs are lost and unemployment rises, people consume less. Economists then wonder how to compensate for this, and end up with ideas such as a basic income. This is by no means altruistic from the point of view of industry, but it is certainly an important issue there too.

What future technology are you most excited about? 

Thomas Schulz: Definitely the changes in medicine - partly because I've been working very hard on that recently, but also because I see the greatest opportunities for application in that area. If we can detect diseases much earlier, that's a great thing. In the next five to ten years, for example, a lot will change for the better in the early detection of cancer. I look forward to the future with excitement and joy.

Connecting people is one of the great challenges of our time - and an important tool for tackling major societal challenges such as climate change.

Vodafone is aware of this challenge, which is why creating a connected world is at the heart of Vodafone's corporate purpose. To ensure that this is not just an empty promise, this purpose is broken down into three areas and supported by clear guidelines:

Technical solutions are needed to ensure that the project of global networking does not remain a utopian dream. Vodafone's answer to this challenge is multi-layer technology. It combines powerful communications infrastructures in an intelligent network that connects people and machines in the best possible way. 

And this is how this network is put together:

Thanks to 5G, visionary technologies such as VR, AR and AI will soon be integrated into our everyday lives, making everything greener and more efficient - and even saving lives: telemedicine and telesurgery will improve our primary healthcare, even in places that were previously difficult to reach. 

The example of unu, described in detail in this issue of Business Cases, shows that networking can also open up new markets and develop entirely new business models.