Hydro is collaborating with electric car maker Polestar and electric motorcycle producer CAKE on Re:Move, a low-carbon aluminum electric trike that aims to make transport of the “last mile” of deliveries cleaner. The companies also hope that the Re:Move trike will spark conversation about how to go about accelerating the societal shift towards more sustainable e-mobility.
The Covid-19 crisis has opened a window to a world with less noisy cities, where the air is cleaner to breathe. In parallel, there has been a surge in online shopping and home deliveries. Inspired by this, the group behind Re:Move saw the need to reimagine last-mile deliveries and how goods are transported within cities as the world looks to radically reduce the reliance on combustion engines. It strives to become a catalyst for change, inspiring new thinking around electric mobility.
“Hydro wants to lead the way in the green energy transition, and we believe collaborations between leading partners are key to accelerate this change,” said Hilde M. Aasheim, president and CEO of Hydro. “With our growth in renewable energy and low-carbon aluminum, we can be an important partner for companies in their effort to further reduce emissions in production and use. This is why we are proud to work together with partners like Polestar to help accelerate the shift to more sustainable mobility.”
Electric Trike Design
Built with fully recyclable, low-carbon aluminum, Re:Move carries packages and delivers them in a cleaner, quieter, kinder way. Compact and mobile enough for most bike lanes but big enough to handle a 275-kg payload, the trike defines a new vehicle category. The multi-functional electric transporter was designed with the city of the immediate future in mind, and presents a new, sustainable way to carry and deliver goods. Commissioned by Wallpaper Magazine and created by designer Konstantin Grcic, Re:Move was imagined as a dynamic, three-wheeled urban “sled.”
Grcic worked with the Hydro engineering team, Chris Staunton (Polestar’s design engineering lead at the company’s U.K. R&D facility), and Stefan Ytterborn (founder of CAKE) to overcome the complex engineering challenges of realizing his design. A team of innovators in e-mobility and Hydro’s experts in material engineering, collaborating remotely, endeavored to make his vision a viable, working reality.
“This is only the beginning,” said Thomas Ingenlath, Polestar CEO. “The electric drivetrain is only the first step, then we have to look at the whole supply chain and what materials we design with. This is so much more exciting than the last twenty years when designers were just making things pretty.”
A working version of Re:Move will be unveiled Autumn 2021, but the story behind the development of Re-Move (so far) will be first revealed by the collaboration partners at the South by Southwest (SXSW) Conference & Festival on March 17, 2021, at 10:00 a.m. PST. This will be followed by a Q&A session with the Re:Move partners on March 18, at 8:00 a.m. PST, open to everyone who would like to attend.