Innovation

The innovation appeared with Quentin Sartorius, a young entrepreneur who founded Elwing in 2015 with a friend he met in Shanghai. The company was founded in Bordeaux in 2015, which is an ideal place, especially because it is possible to practice skateboarding on the quays or in the pedestrian streets. In addition, every first Sunday of the month, the downtown area is closed to traffic, giving skaters an even larger playing field. In addition, it is a company that designs electric skateboards whose goal is to enhance urban travel and make it the best time of day.

Indeed, they aim to optimize the ecological impact in order to make it more environmentally friendly. The company's objective is to participate in the transition to new modes of transport thanks to the Elwing board, which reduces CO2 production. The long-term objective is to generalize small trips that are twice as polluting and could be made using new Individual Electric Vehicles, which do not release any substances harmful to the environment during their use.

Inspiration

Quentin Sartorius is a young entrepreneur who founded Elwing in 2015 with a friend. The two entrepreneurs met in Shanghai. Quentin was a commercial student and his friend was an engineer. They had the idea to develop an electric skateboard, especially when they realized that they had two things in common. Indeed, these were to be passionate about sliding sports but also the problem of travel in the city which was often a major waste of time due to traffic.

Their main purpose was to enhance the value of urban travel by allowing users to spend less time in polluting transport and to ensure that it was the best time of the day. Moreover, because of their passion for sliding sports it was obvious to develop an electric skateboard rather than any other means of travel.

Overall impact

The impact of this innovation on the environment is that this product makes it easier to move around without using polluting transport. This product has a positive impact on the environment by saving CO2, especially by replacing short distance journeys, normally made by car, with the use of an electric skateboard.

But they are not exemplary from an environmental point of view because they design products and it will be a long and complex process to minimize the impact of production on the environment. They are making efforts and are trying to optimize as much as possible but according to him, the environmental success will be for later,

They have interesting projects that will help to minimize their impact on the environment, in particular by repatriating the assembly of the product to France in order to assemble them themselves in Bordeaux. Indeed, this will give more choice to source the components while having more important requirements in terms of eco-design. In addition, another of their projects is to work on the life of the product by giving it a second life and to extend as far as possible the deadline for discarding and allowing the revaluation of the product's components.

Business benefit

From a commercial point of view, the company is experiencing a fairly significant acceleration at the moment and this has been thanks in particular to two essential things according to Quentin : "to have put skateboard on the market and to conceive it as a "premium" product, not in the sense of luxury but rather with a great sense of detail, performance and a good weight/power ratio so well optimized". And finally, to have succeeded in bringing it to market with a very competitive price. The combination of both has therefore enabled a strong acceleration in the business.

Social and environmental benefit

New alternative modes of transport are more than ever the most optimised in urban areas today. The "Nimbus" Elwing electric skateboard meets the needs of alternative modes of transport optimized for both societal and environmental issues.

At the societal level, Elwing skateboarding aims to relieve congestion on the road network in large cities. This innovation would reduce the amount of car travel by users for short distances and thus improve air quality in these cities. Finally, one of the advantages of the Elwing board is that, unlike the electric bicycle, it can be used normally even when there is no more battery. Being very compact it is easily transportable from one place to another. In addition, the impact on society is to create moments of pleasure that are normally a waste of time for those who spend their time in traffic.

At the environmental level, it provides urban dwellers with an urban and electric means of transport that will significantly reduce CO2 production. Indeed, transport accounts for a quarter of greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, gas emissions from cities are higher than the national average and are mainly due to local mobility.

Elwing has the project to set up a recycling circuit specific to the former Elwing boards. The 4 elements of the boards (wood, plastic, battery and electronics) are separated and then sent to the corresponding recycling process. Finally, their job is not to design environmentally friendly charging methods. Indeed, they are working on how to design, manufacture, use and recycle and finally recover their product. The products are connected to a normal outlet but the electricity that comes from that outlet and the way electricity is created comes from another profession.

Interview

Quentin Sartorius, Elwing Director