Thai Etran wants to change traffic through 3D printing electric motorcycle

A Thai startup called Etran recently announced a “grand” plan to start the rental of 3D printed electric motorcycles in the country, completely changing the current traffic conditions. To this end, the company has launched A round of financing, hoping to get 300 million baht (about 59 million yuan) of funds.

The idea of ​​Etran is actually very good, because motorcycles account for a large proportion of traffic in Thailand. At the same time, electric drives are more environmentally friendly than fuel drives. As the company's CEO Soranun Choochut said: "The cost of renting this 3D printed electric motorcycle is only half the cost of a regular fuel motorcycle. This will save an average of 36,000 baht per year (about 7,000 yuan)."

As for the plan, Choochut said that he would first let the first motorcycle go on the road in Bangkok in the third quarter of 2017, then in Bangkok in 2018, and then in other cities in 2019.

Etran does not give information on which parts of the motorcycle will be used for 3D printing, and which parts will be printed by other techniques. But they still revealed some other information, such as the assembly of motorcycles will be handled by SummitAutoParts, the engine (power 5 kW) and battery will be provided by a Chinese company. In addition, the maximum speed of a motorcycle can reach 80 kilometers and the maximum life is 60 kilometers. What's even more exciting is that they are said to use Internet of Things (IoT) technology to allow drivers to check the condition of the battery and other parts at any time.

But in fact, this is just the beginning of Choochut's ambitions - his idea is to build a motorcycle maintenance station around Bangkok like Tesla, and ultimately change the traffic in Bangkok. This kind of maintenance station is said to be able to replace the motorcycle with a new battery within a few minutes, and the speed is faster than the fuel truck.

(Editor)